Blue Wind City, a small city in the southern corner of the Emerald Empire, one of the 7 Empires of the Shandra continent. The city’s main trade depends on the Spirit Cores and a small amount of ores from the mines the city manage to excavate in the wilderness. But the mining industry is not as thriving as the Spirit Core harvesting. The location of the city surrounded by the Wilderness on three sides like a peninsula further makes the mercenary groups to thrive in this small city.

                Spirit Cores are the Energy centres that form in the bodies of the Spirit Beasts, specifically the conglomerate of the Spirit Energy that a Spirit Beast cultivates forms the Spirit Core. Even when the Beast dies, the Spirit Core exists for a set period of time before dissipating into the atmosphere as the natural Spirit Energy. The Spirit Cores have a variety of uses, let it be as a cultivation resource, a raw material used by a Spirit Blacksmith for forging, even as a food source for the domestic Spirit Beasts…

                This makes the demand for the Spirit Cores far outstrip the rate of supply. Even the lowest of Cores have a fairly high price, let alone Cores of some rare and powerful Beasts. That is the main reason why even a small city can thrive just based on the harvest of the Spirit Cores! The same reason why many hot blooded young cultivators join the mercenary groups, not only from the poor families but even the children of the Nobles and Lords. The hunts in the Wilderness provide the important real life experience while stimulating their potential in the face of the life and death situations. They can even learn survival tactic from the veteran hunters which may later on save their lives…

                The one another reason for the existence of the mercenary was for safety. Any kind of Spirit Beast is born with Innate Strength, and the Spirit Energy that the Beast absorbs is used to further enhance the strength providing an insurmountable gap in strength between a Spirit Beast and a cultivator of the same Realm. The existence of allies in the hunt will make up for any breaches in the defences and provide backup in case of attack. Single Hunts are considered to be a gateway to death where one walks the tight line between this world and the netherworld.

                But it’s not like Single Hunts are always frowned upon. But you should have the abilities to match that boast. Generally it requires high cultivation level or a high level Martial Art that can let you triumph over the brute strength of the Beasts. But who in this back water city has such cultivation level or the Marital Arts?

Somewhere deep in the Wilderness…

                Loud roars resounded in the surroundings, as a large bear was rampaging across the thick forest. The bloodshot eyes of the bear clearly indicate that the bear is beyond rage and almost reached the state of insanity. Every swipe of the large paws of the bear downs a large tree as if the trees were bamboo shoots. It was shockingly a Storm Bear, a Beast known for its brute strength and ridiculous defence provided by its thick skin and fur.

                A figure was flashing around the bear in an irregular fashion and somehow managed to evade the attacks of the large bear. Occasionally *Peng* *Peng* sounds could be heard as the figure tried to counterattack time to time taking advantage of the lull between the attacks of the bear.

                The Storm Bear 3 meters in height and each of its arms were like large tree trunks with sharp steel claws at the end of its paws. It was the overlord of that part of the forest, and claimed it to be its territory. It prided itself on its terrifying strength and even those repulsive human groups of cultivators never confronted it without some meticulous preparations. But right now, this single human challenged it and that too in direct conflict. The bear was going insane as its strength proved to be ineffective before this loach like figure that was slipping through its attacks; the only weakness being its speed.it started wildly attacking intending to crush this puny human.

                Naturally, the figure was Azalon, currently training in the Wilderness. He was patiently wearing out the stamina of the Storm Bear, and his tactic bore fruit faster than expected. The Storm Bear gave a large huff as foam formed between its large trees and its arms started slowing down at a considerable rate as the Bear drew air in large gasps.

                Azalon’s eyes glittered as an excited grin drew across that childish face. He instantly appeared behind the Storm Bear, and with a light push of his toes he reached the height of its wide shoulders. His tightly clenched fist shot forth and the muscles of his arm trembled in a bizarre fashion, as he targeted the place where the skull of the Bear meets with the Spinal Cord.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

                Three consecutive booms and a sickening crunch and the Bear instantly stiffened as the first vertebra of the Spinal Cord broke and the shockwave shook the medulla oblongata making it almost brain dead. Azalon swiftly took out a hunting knife and once again his hand flashed as the knife passed through the damaged cartilage and muscles. The Bear let out a final grunt as its massive body fell down shaking the ground lightly.

“Huff, huff… Man that was difficult. But only this Class 2 Storm Bear is the only Beast in its class that can put up a fight with its ridiculous defence. Even my strength of 5300 pounds couldn’t dent that thick skin and fur. Hmm… with the Core of this Storm Bear, I should have enough to breakthrough to the next level.” Azalon muttered as his knife mangled up the skull of the Bear to extract its Spirit Core.

“Hahaha… Faster, faster, you silly cat. You are a waste of food if you can’t even run faster than this. You are the Spirit of Master and you don’t even help out in the hunt. And you have the gall to demand the best part of the meat from the Beast’s body. From now on, this big sister will train you and make you into a worthy animal.” A silky voice came from Azalon’s right and he turned his head to look at his Tiger Spirit Raka being harassed by the Fairy LILY.

“Alright you guys. Come here or else the Soul of this Storm Bear will dissipate.” Azalon lightly laughed at the comical scene of a silver fairy riding over a grey tiger cub while shouting into the ears of the tiger cub.

Each responded with an “Ahh… Yes, Master~~~” and a “Croo” and Azalon could see the tiger cub almost feel relieved as it listened to his call. LILY was still riding on Raka as it rushed towards the massive corpse of the Storm Bear. As soon as the tiger cub approached a certain distance, the bodies of the tiger cub and the fairy flashed with a mild light as they opened their mouths and made a sucking motion.

Golden veins appeared in Azalon’s eyes and in his vision, a shocking scene came into view. Floating above the corpse of the Storm Bear was a transparent apparition the same shape and size of the Storm Bear he had just slain. The apparition turned into two streams as it was devoured by his Spirits.

“Another Class 2 Spirit Beast. It can’t be helped. With my current strength I can’t even escape from them let alone fight wiith the Class 3 Spirit Beasts. I should breakthrough today and my strength will increase to around 6000 pounds. And then maybe tomorrow I can advance deeper into the forest to find some Class 3 Beasts.” Azalon shook his head as the golden veins receded from his eyes.

                It has been a month since Azalon started cultivating that day. From then on, his entire perspective underwent some massive changes. His strength surged, his agility as well his reaction timings increased. His physique was now lither and he could execute his strength without any wasted movements which naturally increased his efficiency in the hunts.

                Azalon’s currently at the 2nd Level of the Spirit Sense Realm, with 5300 pounds of weight behind his small fists. The days following his breakthrough were filled with number of experiments and exploring his abilities. Otherwise, with the number one Support System Fairy Spirit, he could have reached the 5th Level Spirit Sense Realm long ago.

You can’t blame him as this is a Realm which any human back on Earth never managed to reach much less explore the possibilities. Even though there are certain ancient records about Qi or Chi cultivation, they were mainly concentrated on philosophical aspects rather than scientific observations.

                His thoughts wandered to the discoveries of the last month as he watched his Spirits devour the Soul of the Storm Bear.

One Month Before in a Cave…

                Azalon sat in the cave with his eyes closed for who knows after how much time. He was completely immersed in the wonderful feeling of the Spirit Energy flowing throughout his body and he felt as if something changed at the most basic level of the body. But without any sophisticated equipment, he couldn’t make any assumptions as to what and why it changed.

                After a complete sweep, his consciousness reached the Soul Root. The Energy Vortex in his Soul Root was revolving constantly with his Soul as the Focal point. Slowly the vortex started stabilising at a particular speed, and he watched amazed as the [Infantile Souls] of his two Spirits start melting as soon as the vortex stabilised.

                The grey outer case of the Heavenly Demon Tiger melted before the grey liquid merged with the Spirit Beast Mark inside. The tiger cub like Spirit Mark trembled for a while as it absorbed the grey liquid before it stood up and started running around his Soul. The current Spirit Mark was a perfect 3D representation of the tiger cub albeit in a miniature scale. The same situation repeated with the Silver Soul of LILY, and a miniature 3D fairy flew around his Soul in a different trajectory from that of Raka’s. But the other 7 Souls remained unaffected much to the bafflement of Azalon. He made a mental note to scrutinize them on a deeper level later on. The solution seemed simple and obvious but it eluded Azalon.

Azalon slowly opened his eyes and he met with another baffling scene. Both Raka and LILY were enveloped in a cocoon formed by a layer of light. Crack. The cocoons broke after a short moment, and his Spirits appeared from within the cocoons. Azalon could see that some changes occurred with both of them and some closer observation revealed them.

LILY was now slightly taller and the Silver glow on her body was more pronounced, and a silver hoop with a small golden gem appeared on her head.

Otherworldly High Fairy, LILY… Even her name changed!

‘[Upgrades Detected in the hardware of the System. Analysing and Assimilating the Changes… Task Complete. Basic Processing Speed of the System boosted by 12%. Computing the new processing speed into the Queued Tasks. Primary Task Detected: Integrating the System Sensors with the host sensory organs. Updated Time of Completion: 1 Day 13 Minutes 23 Seconds. Secondary Task Detected: Analyse the logs of the System. BEEP. Failure to access the logs with the new processing speed. Task Queue Unchanged…]’

 But most of the changes occurred on Raka. The tiger cub now really looked like a tiger cub when compared to the kitten like appearance from before. Two Silvery patterns adorned his golden eyes which now shone with intelligence from deep within them. The contrast between the dull grey fur and the bright silver patterned golden eyes made them all the more enchanting!

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 Azalon immediately made some connections between what happened in his Soul Root and the situation before him.

“Hmmm… the Souls should have evolved to the [Infantile Stage], but it seems that only when my cultivation reaches the particular level can the Spirits truly Evolve just like now.” He pushed the matter to the back of his mind as he felt that he was 95% correct and it will take some research to confirm his deductions.

                The next few days, Azalon stayed in his room and he was completely engrossed in exploring the changes that happened in his body. He was studying the changes his body underwent as a result of his advancement onto the road of the Spiritual Cultivation. He could feel that the current body of his was like an upgraded version of his previous body. His body felt lighter, stronger, brimming with vitality and a mysterious aura radiated from him.

                Azalon mulled a long time over these changes trying to analyse them, understand the reasons behind them, but he finally gave up as it felt that these changes were based on some laws unique to this plane of existence and before he could understand the underlying rules and regulations he couldn’t comprehend the reasons behind the changes in his body.

                The next part was the most interesting and exciting part of his research. The Artifacts! Especially the [Void Ring] the legendary pocket dimension that was a long-time dream of countless scientists back on Earth! And he was holding one in his hand right now! Azalon felt giddy in his head as he started his examination on the simple copper ring in his palm.

He spent another 10 days analysing the two artifacts and though the readings he managed to obtain were crude and preliminary, even they gave to rise to a feeling that his knowledge he always felt proud of on Earth felt insignificant before the knowledge in this world. But he was on the other hand immensely excited as he longed for the day when he would manage to break down the basic laws of this world… on that day, with the advanced knowledge from this world along with the material advancements from Earth, he was sure that he can create some out of the world artifacts just like this [Void Ring]… the next week was allocated to completely memorise the contents of the 3 Scrolls and as for their contents, Azalon managed to understand the intricacies and know hows of the [Soul Embryo Cultivation Method]. But he was stuck with the [Infinite Beats] and the [Ghostly Shadow Flash]. 

[Infinite Beats] is a fist technique that allows one to execute infinite number of punches in a single punch. Generally, any one can only exert a maximum of 100% strength in  punch. But with this technique, after delivering a punch, the muscles in the arms should contract and expand delivering a second, third... tenth ... hundredth... There exists no limit to the number of punches one can build upon the previous vibration. Azalon only managed to execute 3 Beats and didn't progress furthur. It's like he is missing a simple trick to unleash the next stage. And as for the [Ghostly Shadow Flash], it contains 9 sets of footwork each for a different situation and this technique was practiced to the [Initial Mastery] stage, the first stage of mastery of Martial Arts at which one can understand the fundamentals of the technique and their relation with the flow of Spirit Energy within the body.

The final leg of his preparations; he pondered over the effect of the Spirits on him. He spent around 4 days and managed to find that he inherited 3 Abilities from his Spirits; two from Raka [Devour], [Beast Senses] and a single ability from LILY, which Azalon named [Vector Vision]. Coincidentally, none of them are attack or defensive abilities but of support type!

This is another question added to the pile of unanswered questions, the question as to why he didn’t have any abilities that should be common to the Beast type Spirit Beasts but instead his abilities are all support type abilities!?

[Devour] is a very useful ability for his Cultivation. As the name suggests, this ability can devour and digest almost anything from the meat of the Beasts to even the Spirit Cores. The subsequent Energies in the material will be broken down to their basic level before assimilating into the respective parts in his body. For example, within the meat of a Spirit Beast, along with the juicy and nutritious meat there will also be the Energy that belonged to the Beast when it was alive. This ability extracts this Energy from the meat and the meat will be used to nourish his body while the Energy will be merged into the energy vortex in his Soul Root! It was simply a cheat like ability in the mind set of Azalon!

[Beast Senses] is a sensor boosting ability that changes the human senses into that of a Beast. It was due to this ability that Azalon managed to see the Soul of the Storm Beast that normal people and even most of the cultivators couldn’t see. Not only his eye sight, his hearing, sense of smell and even his intuition became sharper when he invoked this Spirit.

As for the [Vector Vision] from LILY, may be some other time, as Azalon now had to advance to the next level…

Returning to the present situation, Azalon watched as the last vestiges of the Soul of the Storm Bear disappear into the waiting mouths of his Spirits. He felt the two [Infantile Stage Souls] of his Souls tremble slightly as a small part of the requirement for the next evolution to the [Adolescent Stage]. This was one of the two methods recorded in the scroll of the [Sol Embryo Cultivation Method] to evolve the [Soul Embryos]. This method was considered as somewhat shady but the results of this method will be fast and not a least bit secure than the other method of slowly nurturing the [Soul Embryos] using the Energy cultivated from the atmosphere by the Cultivator. But this method was slow to the point of turtle paced.

Even with the second method, Azalon had to kill around 20 Level 1 and 15 Level 2 Beasts before he managed to fill up a quarter of the Energy required for the next evolution. Imagine the amount of Energy one has to cultivate to meet the same level by just using the Energy from Cultivation alone!

Azalon swiftly handled the dissecting the Storm Bear before storing the huge pile of meat and bones along with the Spirit Core in his [Void Ring]. He rushed through the forest before finding a thick tree with a canopy of braches spreading above it. He nimbly climbed onto the tree before finding a well concealed spot within the thick branches. He flipped his hand and two Class 1 Cores appeared in his palm.

He threw them into his mouth before closing his eyes and entered the state of meditation. Raka and LILY grew silent and vigilant as Azalon concentrated on his cultivation. The [Devour] ability converted the Cores into Spirit Energy which under the control of Azalon revolved around his body the maximum number of times he could with his current condition, 9 times. Every revolution purified the Energy before it reached the vortex within the Soul Root.

The vortex suddenly became active under the influx of the Energy as it churned faster and faster while the size of the vortex slowly expanded. But Azalon’s consciousness held a tight leash around the vortex confining it within a particular area. With the constant influx of Energy but with the tight confinement of Azalon’s consciousness, the revolving speed of the vortex suddenly surged to high speeds and it kept on increasing.

This was a trick Azalon managed to apply during the month of study. According to the records on the Cultivation he managed to read in the public library, the most important factor a cultivator had to consider is the purity of the Energy. It was determined by the number of times one can revolve the Energy around his body. The more number of times, the purer the Energy. It was said that Cultivators of the Spirit Core Realm can revolve the Energy thousands if not hundreds of times. One can imagine the degree of purity of the Energy of those Cultivators.

But Azalon couldn’t even manage 10 turns let alone hundreds. So, he came up with this method. Pressure! Applying pressure to filter out the impurities from the Energy! Since he couldn’t apply pressure directly, he confined the Energy Vortex within a particular length and constantly infused with excess Energy. The offset of the confinement will make the vortex rotate faster and faster, and under such high speeds the impurities within the Energy strands will be filtered out.

After 15 Class 1 and 10 Class 2 Spirit Cores, the vortex was now a blur and Azalon could see some greyish wisps escaping out from the high speed vortex. After the last grey strand was force out, Azalon gradually released the confinement of the vortex allowing it to gradually expand. The vortex slowly expanded while its speed slowed down before reaching a specific speed.

Boom… with a boom that resounded within his body, the vortex stabilised and Azalon broke through to the 3rd Level Spirit Sense Realm.  Azalon opened his eyes and a faint lustre appeared in his eyes before fading away. He let out a stale greyish breath and lightly wrinkled his nose as a thick viscous black liquid covered his body emitting a repulsing rotten smell. That was the impurities expelled from his body. He smiled bitterly before taking out a pouch of water from his ring and washing himself.

                After a long bath with intense scrubbing, he put on a new set of clothes before jumping down from the tree. The sky was gradually turning black as night slowly crept in. Azalon whistled and Raka appeared beside him with a *Whoosh*. He picked the tiger cub and placed it within his clothes and LILY settled down on his shoulders leaning against his neck. His figure flashed as he swiftly wove through the forest to reach his home.

                The Wheld mansion was silent but for the occasional patrolling guards. Azalon slowly walked on the familiar path to his room and carefully hid the tiger cub and waved his hand as LILY disappeared. This was another think he discovered. He could make LILY appear and disappear at will, but he couldn't do the same with Raka. Once again he had no explanation for this phenomenon but he was grateful for this ability as LILY was very eye catching. 

                 No one paid any particular interest in this trash of the family and this was one of the reasons that allowed him to keep his advancement in the cultivation a secret. Only his grandfather knew that he Awakened his Spirit and even he didn’t know about LILY or the 7 dormant Spirits within him. The corridor to his room was empty and Azalon felt slightly felt uncomfortable all of a sudden. He hastened his pace and just as he was about to open the door to his room, a strong arm snaked around his neck clutching his throat in the crook of the elbow almost choking him.

“Finally, I managed to catch you, you brat.”