Chapter 2

“Master, is there something wrong?” Relic asked curiously. They reached the summit without her saying a word.

She withdrew her thin white sword and said, “Relic, it’s time for you to show me how much you improved.”

His eyes turned solemn, and he quickly took a battle stance, spear in hand.

There was a brief pause before Relic suddenly shot out in long strides. Pascal readied her sword however, just as he entered her range of attack, he stopped and thrusted his spear.

The spear pierced through the air and appeared in front of her in the next moment. Pascal widened her eyes slightly in surprise, but it wasn’t enough to catch her off guard. Her sword deflected the spear to the side, and she retaliated with a fast diagonal strike.

Relic quickly moved to the side and backed away.

“Good reflex.” She smiled. “That was a good move. You carried the momentum of your strides, stopping right at the perceptive range for your spear, and transferred the energy into one powerful thrust. It was a good surprise attack as no one would have expected your spear to travel so far and that quickly so fast.”

“Thank you, master!”

He seemed to perk up slightly hearing her praise and was more eager now to show off his hard work.

“Now, let’s test out your foundation.”

This time, she took the initiative and quickly appeared in front of him. She slashed down, but the spear quickly blocked it. As this was a spar, she would not use a single ounce of cultivation to help her, nor did she flaunt her superior martial skills. Her entire focus was to see where he was in his spearmanship, and every move was to test that.

Her arm suddenly increased in speed and a barrage of sword strikes came from all around. Relic struggled to keep his spear still, forced back with every strike. Her strikes were relentless and with one last swing it broke his guard.

Relic gritted his teeth and though his hand was numb, he did not let go of his weapon.

He didn’t have time to think as her sword slashed horizontally towards his head. It seemed as if she would not show mercy to her disciple. He quickly dived, barely dodging the sword by mere inches before springing up towards her in a diagonal lunge. Using only two fingers, he pulled the spear down until his hand could grasp the base of the spearhead. With this, he could fight in close range and was his own method to counter the disadvantage of close range fighting with the spear. Having trained every day for the past seven years, his muscles in his right hand and arm were uniquely fit to handle the spear and to him, the spear was already part of his body.

He got close and shot the spear head upwards. His spear was already piercing upwards as her weapon was finishing its swing. If it were to continue, the spear would reach her before she could retract her sword to block the spear.

She had no choice but to jump back in order to evade the spear.

She only took a single leap back, but it had already given Relic enough time to recover and counterattack. A perfectly timed spear pierced towards her before her foot even touched the ground. In this way, there was no way for her to dodge. She was astonished at the seamless transition from being on the defence, then retaliation, and finally a full on counter. It was a testament of his hard work and his mastery of the spear. Even though she saw everything clearly, knew how to counter the attack, and could easily stop the attack, she did nothing and let the spear travel unimpeded.

The spear looked as if it would continue straight through, but then abruptly stopped in front of her chest. His spear stopped right at the edge of her clothes which, under her eyes, was as close as to touching only a single thread on her clothes.

“You’ve really improved since the last time we sparred. You’ve worked hard,” she said with a smile.

Seeing as it was over, Relic collapsed to the ground, panting heavily as sweat soaked the ground.

She extended a hand and helped her disciple up.

“I never thought that from the first time you took the spear you would reach such a level. I’ve never given you guidance in the spear's way, but I can tell your foundation is close if not already perfect. If only you had a true teacher of the spear who knows how much further you could go?”

She sighed before taking out two items from her spatial ring. One was a thin book while the other, a wooden box.

Relic looked at the two items in her hands.

“Master, these are?“

“Gifts for you. “

He looked at the gifts strangely, then back to her.

“Master, is today a special occasion?”

“What special occasion? Can’t I just give a gift to my disciple?“ One could hear the sharpness of her voice rising.

He gave it some serious thought and couldn’t help but feel apprehensive in checking them out, especially the book. The last time she had given him a book was when he had just turned twelve. He had just begun his growing phase and as a young teen, he obviously had some questions regarding his body. Most boys his age would already have understood their bodies well in advance before entering the sect, but neither he nor his master knew how to ask. Pascal, especially as the one who raised him, felt the responsibility fell upon her to educate her disciple about his body. However, as someone who pursued cultivation, she never took the time to study the opposite sex. A pure maiden, she was as clueless about the opposite gender as one could get. She had even kept her eyes closed whenever she would give him a bath when he was younger.

Determined to help her disciple, she immediately headed to the closest city in order to find material about the subject. What she came back with was a hefty book titled: [A Boy’s Journey Through The Clouds]

Relic could remember the exact words she said when she handed him that book.

~ Relic, this book will answer every question you have about the changes happening in your body. Although this book is rather large, it is apparently very popular among young men, and the bookseller guaranteed on his reputation that you will be a man after reading this.

Not doubting his master’s words, he retreated to his place and broke the wax seal. The first thing he saw was a drawing of a beautiful, fully nude woman with bountiful endowments in a striking pose. Eyes widened and jaw dropped, he didn’t even realize he had been staring at the image for several minutes. A strange sensation roused within him and before he knew it, he had already turned the page. What followed was a short story describing the woman on the first page as she fell in love with a younger, more virile man who helped her understand the true nature of her womanhood in place of her distant husband. The story was riveting and Relic couldn’t put it down.

Before he knew it, the story had finished with a satisfactory ending and he couldn’t help but feeling like he wanted more. He turned the page and what followed was another image, now depicting two young women in risque clothes lying in bed on both sides of a well-toned man. You couldn’t see the man’s face, but you could see his chocolate abs and the flush on the women’s face which made their lust palpable. Who ever did the illustrations for this book surely was surely a renowned artist.

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The story of the image followed, and by now, it was easy to see what kind of book this was. Indeed, what his master had bought him was erotic fiction but not just any old erotica, but the greatest collection of erotic fiction in the entire continent. This book contained hundreds of the best rated erotica written by various authors, paired with exquisite illustrations, and bond together in one book. Relic quickly forgot about everything else as his mind delved into the stories and as night turned to day, he had only finished up to a third of the book. The man who had sold this book had not lied, and he learned a lot regarding both the male and female body.

Perhaps it had been a good thing that after she had handed this book to him, she entered secluded cultivation and did not bother him, for she would have seen her disciple in the corner of his room reading the book like a madman. He skipped his training and continued reading, even skipping meals despite his stomach protesting. However, on the second day, everything took a sharp turn. This book comprises the greatest collection of erotic fiction, which did not pertain to any one type of erotica. The first half of the book was more or less vanilla, perfect for new readers into the genre, but the second half of the book began a journey into less than savory topics. Those stories explored the depths of the human imagination and introduced him to the sins of man.

Chains, whips, slaves, abuse, it only got worse as the stories progressed, some of which even made him feel like vomiting in disgust. However, although every fiber of his being told him to stop reading, he could not as if something was compelling him to finish. He read through every wretched story and on the fourth night, in the dark of night, a fire was born and within that fire, a book burned to ash.

That following week, he spent his time indoors, haunted by what he saw and read. It would take another week before he would take a step outside and resume his training in order to forget the things he saw.

When he next saw his master, he said nothing of the true contents of the book and said that it had taught him a lot regarding his changing body. Knowing his master, it would likely cause an awkward tension between the two if she knew he gave him erotic fiction to teach him about puberty. Thus, prepared to bury the truth along with the ashes of the book, he lied and [A Boy’s Journey Through The Clouds] became a notion of the past. However, to this day, Relic has been wary of any gifts from his master.

Seeing the blank book in his hands triggered the memories of those days, and he couldn’t help but shudder.

Pascal raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?” she asked

Relic quickly snapped back to reality and stuttered: “N-Nothing, err, well, master, what kind of book is this?“

She could see him acting strangely but still answered: “This is a gift from a spear cultivator which contains a spear art known as the [Cascading Spear].“

As her words entered his ears, he felt his heart jump as he muttered: “Spear arts…“

Of all the disciples in the Thunderstorm sect, he alone was the only one who practiced the spear. The reason being that the Thunderstorm sect was actually quite new among the sects, being only several decades old since establishment. This was a sect with little foundation and had never gone to war with any other sect. The amount of techniques and weapon arts within the depository was paltry, and there were no spear arts or spear techniques found anywhere in the sect. However, the Thunderstorm sect would still garner respect for being a second-rate sect in part to their sect master, one of the most powerful Golden Core realm Cultivators in the continent; and also in part to his secret arts [The Zephyr Thunder blade]. This art was one of his own creation and allowed him to rise through the realms unimpeded all the way to his current realm, which was just below the half step to immortal ascension realm. The sect master divided the art into separate volumes which the disciples could take out to study. The first three volumes were available for outer disciples, while the next three were strictly for the inner disciples. Publicly, there are only nine volumes in total for the complete art, which only inner court elders or those with extraordinary potential could study in its totality. However, in reality, to complete the art, there was a tenth volume which only two people in the entire sect actually looked at, which included the sect master.

Thus, for a spear user like Relic, he had little in the way of guidance in techniques or arts. The only spear techniques he had ever gotten were very basic ones meant to teach him about different stances and basic techniques. There were no arts available to the public as the various sects held those arts within their sect, and only if you joined as a disciple could you borrow them.

Seeing the art within the book in front of him, his body shook in excitement. He took the book and flipped through the pages; and aside from the spear art, it also touched upon the foundations of the spear and the experiences of the cultivator. In the last sect section, it even mentions how to become one with the spear and eventually grasp piercing intent.

As he read the last sentence, he muttered blankly: “Piercing… intent.“

Intent was something incredibly hard to grasp, as you couldn’t directly teach it; cultivators had to figure it out themselves. In part, intent was a law of the world which guides the movement of anything and everything. Grasping intent meant you could move with the world and see things normal people couldn’t. With greater understanding, one could even manifest an intent into reality and with piercing intent, one could make even a dull rock as sharp as a spear.

Relic was in a daze and only when his master coughed out did he snap back to reality.

He quickly turned to her and asked: “Master, I don’t understand. Who would give such a precious book to me?“

Pascal understood her disciple’s confusion, as even she was uncertain as to the reason that man had given her a book of such value to her disciple.

She explained: “Several months ago, I went to Azure Sky city in order to take part in an auction hosted by the Illustrious Purple Pavilion. There was only one thing I wanted at the auction, so I ignored everything else. However, midway through, they brought out an ancient manual depicting a certain spear arts. This manual was already breaking apart and seemed as if a simple breeze would turn it into dust. Anything writing inside had already become illegible aside from a few poses. I thought despite the state the manual was in, you may gain some insight from staring at it, so I tried to bid for it.“

Hearing this, Relic’s heart felt especially warm. Ever since that day Pascal had picked him up, the two had a relationship which was as close as family. Though she did not act like a mother, she had taken care of him and he cared for her as much as any child would their parents. Even with the fiasco of regarding [A Boy’s Journey Through The Clouds], he was grateful because it was from his master.

She continued: “Fortunately, there was little interest in the manual and so I thought I would get the item. However, before it was over, there was another bid from within the VIP lounge. I bid again, thinking they had only done so by mistake, but they continued to bid for the item. There was a short back and forth before I had to give up as I still needed the funds to bid for an item. In the end, they took the manual, and I won the item I had originally come for. As I was about to leave, a man approached me and introduced himself as Surius of the Cascading spear. I’ve never heard of him, but he was the one who had bought the manual. Although it was only a brief exchange, I could feel this man was not simple and was likely several times more powerful than me. Just being in his presence I could feel a faint piercing intent exuding from him despite him simply standing in front of me. He asked why I was interested in obtaining that manual, and I simply stated that my disciple practiced the way of the spear and didn’t have any spear techniques or arts to learn from.“

“He looked as if he was pondering before he called over another man. It was his student and I could feel an incredibly sharp aura coming from him, which was only lower than his teacher. They had a brief discussion before he took out another manual and gave it to me. Sir Surius then told me that this manual contains the technique to perform his Cascading spear art and other notes regarding the way of the spear. He told me you could have this manual on two conditions and that was you had to reach the bare minimum of being a mortal weapon expert. Today in our spar, I believed you have truly reached that thresh hold and among mortal weapon experts, you truly are not lacking."

Relic looked at the manual, more confused than before. It simply made little sense why such a powerful spear cultivator would share their spear technique with someone they didn’t even know.

“And the second condition?“ he asked.

“That if you are to accept this manual, then you can be considered as his student. In his words, the path of the spear means no obstacle is impregnable and the best way forward is one you can see straight through. You should take his words as something meaningful and ponder them when you practice.”

Relic ruminated for a moment before nodding. “I understand, thank you, master.“

Those words will probably stick with him for all his life and become his mantra as he travelled further down the road of the spear. In his heart, the man who he did not know but whose writing was in this manual became his teacher.

I will repay this debt of gratitude one day, I promise. He made a solemn promise.

Pascal nodded.

In the heat of things, Relic likely forgot about his other gift. Just as she was about to hand him his second gift, her ring suddenly vibrated and she heard a voice transmission in her mind.

She suddenly froze and Relic, concerned, asked: “Master, is everything okay?”

“Y-Yea, take sometime to study the manual. I have something to do so I’ll be back later,” she said with a smile.

She took off to the sky leaving behind her confused disciple.