Huang Ying continued to retch for several minutes, everything he spewed up quickly sliding back to him and sinking into his body. Part of the reason he was retching was the pain coming from the flood of memories, but the main reason behind it was the contents of the memories. He saw all the foul deeds committed by the bandits and several of the villagers, all of them flashing past his mind at once.
He not only saw memories of men and women getting violated, felt their fear and pain, he even saw the memories of those who committed the vile deeds, felt their pleasure and ecstasy. It was a strange sensation to not only be on the receiving end but to also be the one dishing it out, the dissonance part of the reason his mind felt like it was tearing apart.
But after a few minutes passed and all the memories finished flashing past his mind, Huang Ying felt as if he had simply read about all of it in a book, the myriad of emotions fading away. Huang Ying wiped his mouth with the back of his hand once he stopped retching, the corners of his mouth slowly turning up as he started to laugh, the intensity of it slowly increasing.
"Heh, so that's the reason huh? Haha, how can you not laugh at that, it's just so fucking dumb."
One of the memories he received from Baku detailed how Huang Ying ended up being the one to receive the element of devouring. He too had been a bit curious about it, wondering just what sort of grand secret he hid to receive such great power. Could it be an ancient bloodline, something to do with his parents, maybe Baku had appreciated his will?
The answer was that it was none of those, Huang Ying hadn't been chosen. It was completely random, the power simply appeared in a new person a random amount of years after the previous holder died, it didn't care one whit about anything they had, it could appear in anyone and anything. Huang Ying restrained his laughter, standing up and stretching his body, which felt like it hadn't moved in years.
"Oh well, it's better like this, it's nice and transparent."
It was nice to know a concrete reason for why he got the power, it was also nice to know that nothing was expected of him, he didn't have to fulfill some goal or follow some dream to receive the power. He simply got it and was free to do as he pleased, which was the only thing he desired, the freedom to do as he pleased. While Huang Ying was stretching his body, the shocked voice of Li Jun echoed out within his mind.
"You...What just happened? What did you do?"
Huang Ying was actually somewhat surprised by the fact that Li Jun's soul was still within him. From the looks of it, the devouring element considered them to be one and the same, including Li Jun in the rebuilt body. Huang Ying gave Li Jun a summary of everything he had just learned and acquired, Li Jun was after all one of the very few people that Huang Ying had left. Once Huang Ying finished his story, Li Jun's voice rang out within Huang Ying's head as a soft mutter, urging him on.
"Baku, one of the nine Ancestral Gods? So does that mean that you can cultivate now, have you checked your dantian, and do you feel anything strange about your body?"
Strangely enough, despite the fact that Li Jun's voice was only present within Huang Ying's mind, he was completely unable to hear the first part of his sentence, it just sounded like blowing wind to him. Huang Ying himself hadn't checked what Li Jun was pointing out so he closed his eyes, his mind automatically drifting down into his dantian.
When Huang Ying regained his vision, he was standing on the same island he stood on when he first saw Baku. The ashen island was still only about half a kilometer in each direction, but a few changes had happened to both it and to the surroundings.
Everything below the island was still pitch black, but the sky was now lit up by hundreds of stars that sparkled with varying intensity. There were a few hundred more stars located far behind the sparkling ones, but these stars were dim in color and felt dead and distant. Huang Ying knew what all these stars were, each one contained the memories of one person he had devoured, allowing him to easily access the memories whenever he wanted. As long as he continued to devour others, the sky above him would shine brightly with stars, it would definitely be a magnificent sight. As for what the dim stars were, Huang Ying had a guess, but he wasn't quite certain as he didn't have any proof.
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The changes on the island were also rather apparent, a one-meter tall mound of earth had appeared next to the 200-meter wide lake that was no longer empty, it now contained a few drops of milky white liquid. A faint breeze also blew all around them, rustling Huang Ying's shoulder-length black hair. Seeing the changes of the island, Huang Ying's shoulders couldn't help but tremble in excitement, the corners of his mouth twitching.
This island was his dantian, the thing he had previously been denied, and this island was his cultivation. Some would have a volcanic wasteland or a frozen expanse, but he had this ashen island and its tiny mound of earth. Everything inside his dantian represented one element, the island itself was his devouring element, the breeze was the wind element, and the mound of earth was just that, the earth element.
Just like one of the memories he got said, the power of Baku gave him some other elements that he could use to hide the fact that he had the devouring element, and what the devouring element chose to give him first was the earth and the sky. He knew that he could increase his number of elements in the future by absorbing blood or Qi from creatures tied to something called the Ancestor Gods, but he hadn't gotten any information about what exactly these Ancestor Gods were, causing him to have the slightest urge to curse at Baku.
The wind and the earth element were fairly simple elements, you could conjure and control the wind and the earth, but the devouring element was a bit more special. The basis was that everything devoured would either become a part of the user or strengthen said part if he already had it. So if Huang Ying devoured a person's flesh and blood, his own flesh would become a bit stronger, devouring their soul would make his own soul stronger, and devouring their Qi and cultivation could let him increase and strengthen his own cultivation.
The element was somewhat weak at the start, as stronger people could easily resist the devouring, but as the user grew stronger and stronger by devouring others, the element and the user would become truly fearsome. Huang Ying took a few deep breaths to calm down his excitement and then extracted his mind from his dantian, opening his eyes and answering Li Jun's questions.
"Dantian's just fine, I can properly cultivate now. Other than the element of devouring, I've also been given the element of wind and the element of earth. As for anything strange about my body, I can suddenly see everything within five meters around me, even if its behind me or hidden behind a rock. There's also....this."
Huang Ying stretched out both of his arms as he finished his sentence, a sliver of wind gathering into an orb above his left palm while a small pillar of earth appeared above his right palm. Huang Ying knew preciously little about cultivation, but from the size of his dantian he knew that he was still only considered to be within the First Step of Mortality, and he also knew that controlling and conjuring the elements like this was not supposed to be possible until you reached at least the Sixth Step of Mortality. The voice of Li Jun rang out within Huang Ying's mind again after a short while, seemingly taking a bit of time to figure out how to word what he was trying to say.
"Allowing you to conjure and control the elements before you're supposed to, the power of this Baku really is rather freakish. As for the fact that you can see everything around you, the explanation for that is simple, devouring so many other people has already strengthened your senses enough to unlock your perception. Normally a cultivator has to reach at least the Fourth Stair of Ascension to unlock their perception, but you've taken a shortcut after your body was rebuilt. Your perception should only grow stronger as you do, so it should give you a very strong advantage over others. After all, the longer the range of your perception, the longer the range of your attacks."
Li Jun had been a cultivator for a very long time, so even after Huang Ying devoured so many people and acquired their memories, it was still Li Jun who knew more than him. Huang Ying gave a slight nod of his head and played around with his perception a bit, it felt like he had eyes everywhere, a somewhat strange sensation. While he was playing around, the casual voice of Li Jun echoed out inside his mind again.
"But I must say, you're calmer than I expected you to be, are you sure nothing inside you broke after all that? I mean, you did just technically cause the deaths of all the villagers you grew up with."