Chapter 5

Yuha awoke feeling refreshed and determined. It was time for her to begin training in the “Crumbling Empyrean” skill. Closing her eyes she recalled the knowledge of the skill. That had been implanted into her mind. She recalled that the skill required an object or location with high energy content. “Soulblood I need some help,” Yuha said to the empty room. Without a sound, Soulblood appeared from thin air.

“Good morning little birdie,” Soulblood said with a smile. This caused Yuha to glare at Soulblood.

“My name is Yuha!” Yuha reprimanded annoyed at Soulblood for treating her like a child.

“Alright, little birdie what did you need help with,” Soulblood asked completely ignoring Yuha’s objection.

“I need an object or environment that is rich in world essence in order to cultivate,” Yuha explained.

“With your cultivation technique at the current stage using an item would be more beneficial. If your cultivation goes awry you will quickly run out of energy so the damage should be minimal,” Soulblood pondered aloud as he pulled a sack out of thin air. “This sack contains some world shards that contain pure essence. Use these to train your technique. Yuha took the sack and reached inside. She pulled out a thin milky white sliver that seemed to be made of crystal. Just holding the crystal made her feel refreshed. “If that is all I'll take my leave. Be sure to cultivate well little birdie,” Soulblood said as he vanished.

“I am not a little bird!” Yuha yelled as Soulblood vanished. With a huff she sat down on the bed and entered into a meditative state. With a world shard grasped in her hand she slowly began extracting the essence from the shard. Then using the secret skill from the “Crumbling Empyrean” technique she began warping the pure essence into curse energy. Then following the steps she began to infuse the curse energy into her fingertips. As the energy infused into her flesh she felt a slight burning that was quickly becoming a bone piercing pain. She endured through the pain as the infusion had to be complete or all the effort and energy would go to waste.

After what seemed like an eternity her fingertips were fully infused with curse energy. Yuha opened eyes realizing she was covered in sweat. Just infusing that tiny bit of energy had severely drained. She shuddered as she realized that if she could not endure later on when she was infusing her internal organs she would end up dead. She absorbed the remainder of the pure essence to revitalize herself causing the world sliver to disintegrate.

She inspected her fingers to see if there were any physical changes. Fortunately, her fingertips remained perfectly normal. “Soulblood does this place have a training room?” Yuha asked to the empty room. Like clockwork, Soulblood appeared.

“Of course follow me,” Soulblood replied as he led Yuha to a large open hall. In the hall was a variety of training tools. Soulblood began to explain what some of the tools were used for. “We have puppets that test combat standards, Strength pillars the can measure your raw force and a reaction chamber.”

Yuha nodded and walked over to a strength testing pillar. She wanted to see the difference between her infused strength and non infused strength. She threw her fist at the pillar causing a bang when her fist hit. A single-digit of five appeared on the pillar. She then clawed at the pillar causing a seventeen to appear on the pillar. Yuha was slightly surprised as her fingertips were three times stronger than the rest of her body. “Let’s try this,” Yuha thought to herself as she pointed at the pillar. A stream of black energy shot out of her finger and struck the pillar. Instead of a bang the black light merged with the pillar causing black runes to appear on the pillar.

The black rune seemed to suck in light as the pillar seemed to have trouble determining how strong the attack was as the pillar displayed rapidly changing numbers. The number finally reach forty-five before stopping. Yuha then sent another beam of light into the pillar causing the number to start slowly increasing again. The pillar began to crack slightly as the number neared one hundred.

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"So that's a use of curse energy," Yuha thought to herself. The "Crumbling Empyrean" technique only taught how to form curse energy not how to specifically use it. The number on the pillar finally stopped at 132. The curse runes faded away allowing the pillar to regenerate. "It seems like the runes will be expelled once their energy is exhausted," Yuha contemplated.

She then went to the puppet section to try out her skill in actual combat. She examined the puppets that seemed to be made of wood. "Activate," Yuha commanded. The puppet remained motionless as Yuha heard a chuckle from behind.

You have to insert a world shard to activate the puppet silly little birdie," Soulblood explained while chuckling. Yuha blushed as she inserted a world shard into the puppet. The puppets eyes lit up as it lunged at Yuha.

She sidestepped the puppet and jabbed a finger striking the puppet. Where she had struck the puppet a curse rune appeared. "Bind!' Yuha said causing the rune to glow with a black light. Black energy wrapped around the puller preventing it from moving. Yuha held both hand out in front of her as she focused all of her essence into her fingers. Black curse energy flowed out from her ten fingers and formed a curse rune the size of her palm. "Reflect," Yuha said causing the rune to seemingly vanish.

After commanding the rune she fell to her knees as exhaustion washed over her. She had used all of her essence to cast that rune. After a few moments the puppet freed itself from the binding rune. It then proceed to rush towards Yuha but as it arrived to were the reflect rune was placed it seemed to slam into a solid wall. The invisible rune became visible as the puppet began to punch the invisible barrier. Each time the puppet struck the barrier cracks formed on its arms as its attack were being reflected.

Using the time her barrier had bought her Yuha began absorbing a world shard. As she was restoring her essence she was also quickly going through the few basic runes that were recorded in the skill. Outside of the reflect and bind rune the only other was the corrode rune that she had used on the pillar. With the world shard in one hand she held out the other as she slowly formed a corrode rune that was bigger than the one she had used on the pillar. As she finished forming the rune she rushed towards the puppet. The puppet finished breaking through the reflect rune just as Yuha arrived before it.

Thrusting her palm into the puppet’s head she activated the rune. As her palm made contact the puppet’s head disintegrated in the blink an eye. With its head gone the puppets collapsed into a heap. "That was more effective than expected," Yuha remarked as she wiped the sweat off her forehead. Her body felt sore from the strain of back to back uses of her curse energy. Even with absorbing a world shard she still felt the strain.

“Impressive but be careful not to use more curse energy than you can handle or you will suffer a backlash,” Soulblood advised. Yuha nodded as she currently felt a very mild backlash.

“Soulblood, you said I have a month to train her right?” Yuha asked

“That is correct. Once the month is up I will send you on your way,” Soulblood answered.

“So while I am here do I have a limit on the number of world shards I have access too?” Yuha asked with an impish grin. Soulblood pulled a long face as he felt like he was being extorted by a mob boss.

“Yes within the month you are allowed as many world shards as you can use,” Soulblood replied glumly. Yuha snickered at seeing Soulblood act all miserly.

“Good! I am heading back to my room to cultivate,” Yuha said as she turned around and returned to her room. Her goal at this point was to use the limitless world shards to attempt to reach the initial success stage. That would mean she would have to finish refining both her hands and feet. She knew in order to do that before the month was up she would have to focus entirely on doing that. Grabbing two world shards one in each hand, she began to absorb the essence.

Besides taking a rest after each cultivation session she continuously trained slowly increasing the amount of her body that had been refined. A day before the month was up she managed to reach the initial success stage. Opening her eyes that gleamed with excitement she rushed off to the training hall. Clenching her fist she threw a punch at one of the strength measuring pillars. When her fist collided with the pillar a wave of black energy pulsed outward. The pillar cracked and fell apart before swiftly regenerating.

“Being able to destroy the pillars means you have stepped into the refinement realm,” Soulblood remarked. Yuha looked puzzled after hearing Soulblood. “There are many stages in cultivation. You will come to learn of them all in due time,” Soulblood said trying to be mysterious. .

Yuha rolled her eyes in annoyance before saying “Soulblood, I have reached a bottleneck so any more time won't help. It is time to send me wherever it is you intend to send me.”

“So the little birdy even knows about bottlenecks, huh?” Soulblood mocked.

“Even fiends run into bottlenecks you old codger,” Yuha said exasperated. Soulblood chuckled as he waved his hand. A swirling multicolor portal sprung into existence in front of Yuha. Seeing the portal yuha took a deep breath to calm herself. She then turned around and hugged Soulblood surprising him. “Will I ever get to see you again?” Yuha asked as she hugged him. She had only known Soulblood for a month but he was a guiding light when her world had collapsed into darkness causing her to feel attached.

“If you become strong enough and have a few lucky chances you may be able to access the Soulblood realm. At that point we will be able to meet again,” Soulblood explained. Yuha separated from him as she nodded.

“Then I look forward to meeting you again when I am stronger,” Yuha said as she walked into the portal filled with determination.