Chapter 15- Preparations

Rancer is elated with the prize that he has found in the ring. the rest of the prizes are just consolations or bonus for him. Rancer takes out a pill and pops in into his mouth. Using his chi, he regulates the diffusion speed of the pill to maximize the efficiency. Bit by bit of the pills melts and diffuse into the blood. Every now and then, the blood with the medicine properties will have some contact with the dantian. The dantian will then absorbs the medicine property causing the dantian to shake. Although it may be minuscule but the dantian then constricts and compresses itself. The dantian then enlarges back to its normal size. The alternating compressing and enlarging last for an hour. Now, Rancer can feel that this pill truly lives up to its rank. The Rank 7 Consolidation Pill is a pill that helps in consolidating and stabilizing the cultivation of oneself. This pill has been a great help in saving Rancer’s time by cutting down the time he needs to consolidate his cultivating by nine months.

Now that Rancer thinks about it, why Grandpa Dugo does not help him by giving him the pills? Surely, Dugo’s power in already unfathomable, this kind of pill is surely nothing to him. Rancer asks, “Grandpa, why do you not give me the pill?” Dugo replies, “Tell me, will you appreciate things that are given to you or thing that you earned by yourself? You are now treading the path of immortality which is full of cruelty, deceit and struggles. Therefore, you have to depend on yourself and not someone else.” Rancer just nods as he accepts the information given out by his grandpa but it sounds as if his grandpa is going to leave him. Rancer takes at a look at the main prize and salivate. Greedily rubbing his hand, he takes it out. Removing the lid, he summons his Ordinary flame at the expense of all his chi and tries to engulf this alchemy flame but the alchemy flame resists its out most to be engulfed. Rancer starts to feel depressed but he comforts himself telling him that this alchemy flame will not have been classified as the high-grade alchemy flame if the alchemy flame is engulfed by his Ordinary flame. Rancer makes a long-term goal which is that he will make sure that his Ordinary flame will engulf the Blizzard flame in the future. The Blizzard flame is a highly specialized alchemy flame used for combat. This Blizzard flame is formed at an area with super high density of chi, some decent amount of spirit energy, temperature as low as -50 degree Celsius and most importantly a running hot magma through the ground to make the concentration of the fire element essence to be fairly high.

Rancer keeps the container back into his ear-ring, Taratos. This way the alchemy flame will be extremely safe and no one can ever find it from him. As they traveled back to Duston Village, there is no much of hindrance. The journey is fairly smooth. Upon reaching back, the three of them are greeted by the whole village including Chouno, Jeslyn’s father. If one was to look at Chouno, one can see the used-to-be dead eyes have change into a pair of eyes filled with new-found determination. Chouno makes an almost 90 degree bow to Dugo, then saying, “Please, take me as your disciples.” Dugo answers, “I never take disciples but I can see that you have clearly crawled out of your sorrow and your past. I can teach you some techniques.”

After than Dugo imparts some knowledge and techniques to Rancer, Jeslyn and Chouno. Dugo also gifts the farmers with common divine artifacts that are specially customized for farming. The farmers are beyond happy to have these highly efficient gadgets. Their harvest doubles. The revolution has turned this village into a city. Slowly but surely, let it be the shape, essence or the people, it is slowly catching the prerequisite requirements of a city. The only thing that the village is lacking is the trade routes which will bring in the merchants and their specialized merchandise. Time sure do flies at times of peace. Without knowing Rancer is already approaching the age of six. During these whole time, the relationship of Rancer and Jeslyn become a well-known thing in the village. The villagers acknowledge them as a couple and neither Dugo nor Chouno objects to the relationship. For Chouno, the time spent is fairly used in cultivation. Chouno has reached mid level of the fourth realm. As for Jeslyn, her cultivation speed is still fairly high although all her extra meridians are sealed. Jeslyn herself has reached the early level of the 3rd realm. Rancer himself has reached 3 stars 3 stripes which is comparable to a human at the mid level of the 3rd realm. All the villagers have at least reached the 2nd realm. Once in a while, the villagers will set up an expedition party to experience the life of a cultivator and also sharpen their senses as a cultivator.

During the remaining years before Rancer reaches the age of six, Rancer spends most of his time in learning martial arts rather than cultivating. Rancer learns two martial techniques related to lightning. One of them is lightning pulse. First, the owner needs to concentrate his chi towards the tip of one of the fingers. Drawing the lightning essence from the atmosphere, one needs a perfect synchronization, harmony and control to perform the last step. The last steps require the cultivator to condense it into a ball and after that the owner needs to insert into the enemy. The reason why this technique is called a lightning pulse is that this ball of lightning will be a pulse of lightning after inserted into the enemy. The lightning pulse will react to the cultivator’s other lightning art and as the other lightning arts makes at least a slight contact with enemy having the lightning pulse. The lightning pulse will release lightning attack onto the enemy from the insight with a power multiplier of two times based on the how much the power of the other lightning arts reaches the enemy. Rancer takes one whole year just to make one lightning pulse. At first, Rancer laughs at his grandpa for heavily looking down on him. One year is the amount of time that Dugo predicts Rancer will learn the art. Rancer thinking to himself that what kind of martial arts needs that amount of time to practice just to a slight grasp of the true power. At first, Rancer draws in too much chi and could not sense the lightning element. Drawing too less chi and there is too much lightning element making the skill useless. After Rancer manages to get the correct mix of the percentage of chi and lightning essence in 2 months, Rancer goes on with making a harmony between the chi and the lightning essence. However, the presence of the chi and lightning are like water and oil. The more Rancer forces the lightning essence and chi to harmonize, the more these two forces rampage causing Rancer to lose the control of it. The ball of lighting essence and chi denotes like a mini bomb. The situation persists for 8 months and Rancer still cannot find a solution to the answer. There is no way Rancer will beg for Dugo for extra pointers as his pride does not allow it. Rancer vows to solve this problem himself. As he cultivates as usual, thinking about it, Rancer asks himself since he can cultivate chi why can’t he draw in the lightning essence as well. Rancer attempts to draw in the lightning essence along with the chi together. As expected, there is a huge resistance in the lightning essence in being drawn together by the chi. Nevertheless, Rancer has managed to draw in some lightning essence in. An unexpected change occurs. This time when he draws in the lightning essence, the resistance has dropped by a small minuscule. Rancer just cultivates like that and only are one month does he notice that the previous action of him using the new way of cultivation has made his chi more attuned to the lightning essence. The present chi now has this almost familiar feeling with the lightning essence on the outside. Rancer quickly perform the lightning pulse technique. Rancer can feel it. It is coming but then the feeling of harmony is dispersed after one second. The greed for the feeling has him to cultivate for another month. Finally, Rancer has managed to produce the lightning pulse but there is no sense of accomplishment for he even grasp the small portion of the technique longer than Dugo’s expectation by a fortnight.

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Rancer then learns another lightning skill called the ionization lightning. One needs to create a highly charged lightning by connecting the lightning essence with chi being the one that leads the path. Since, Rancer has grasp the harmony of chi and lightning essence, Rancer learns the skill quickly. The best part of the skill is that the lightning being highly charged will cause the surrounding air particles to ionize as well bringing the destructiveness of the skill up another level. Rancer then learns a movement skill called Earth’s Embrace. Using this skill, one can feel as if one is being embraced by the Earth allowing one to travel on the ground with almost no resistance. Without a doubt this will have been the best movement skill but the only downside is that the skill is most effective when the cultivator is on contact with the ground or earth related things like trees. The rest of the time is spent learning the basics of the art of enchantment.

As there is still one week left before Rancer and Dugo are moving out. Dugo announces to the village that after this week, both of them will be leaving the village. Dugo hopes that their life will be better and at the time of departure the enchantment array will wear off allowing one to notice the village but the villagers have nothing to be afraid of for they are no longer those ordinary mortals. Their powers are capable to rival the armies. The villagers unanimously decides that Chouno to be their leader and Chouno accepts it willingly. The days pass peacefully as the villagers prepared the grand farewell for both of them. The day has arrived. Although it pains the villagers to part with their savior, they still have to face the reality for the savior with unfathomable strength probably has some plan for Rancer. The farewell starts off at the night when everyone has finished their work. It is a mix of bitter sadness and merriness in this event.

During this merry event, Dugo, Chouno, Jeslyn and Rancer are sitting together at one table. Jeslyn offers to serve them. Jeslyn pours the wine to three of them. Rancer takes at a look at Dugo and Dugo appears not to be restricting him to do so. Rancer drinks a few cup of wine and he is starting to feel drowsy. Jeslyn carries Rancer backs to the bed. At this moment, Rancer starts to feel a sudden uncontrolled rise in heat. Rancer is bewildered and asks, “What is going on with my body?” Jeslyn replies, “This is just the side effect of the wine.” Jeslyn drags Rancer’s legs to the bed. Looking at Rancer one least time, Jeslyn draws near to Rancer. Jeslyn gives a peek to Rancer’s lip. Rancer’s hand then forms a bear hug around Jeslyn and pulls her towards him. The peck then turns to a passionate kiss. Both are unwilling to part from one another. After a minute or so, they then parts away. Rancer says, “Do not worry. I will come back and find you after I finish my stuff. Wait for me. At that time, I will personally ask your father for his blessing.” Jeslyn with some tear beads forming at the edge of both eyes nods while saying, “I will wait for you.” “Here is something that will allow you to remember you and this sword is blood-bonded with me. Therefore, carrying this sword will allow me to roughly guess your location.”

After that, they each struggle to fall asleep as they reminiscence their happy past together. The night passes giving relaxation to the people from their fatigue after a whole day’s of work except for the two people. As they will not know when they will meet each other again. It’s day time. It is finally time to leave. Rancer gives a hug to Jeslyn and says, “Wait for me.” After that, they parted away. It is time for Rancer to enter a sect. The Divine Tiger Sect.