Due to even Naath’s soul receiving a shock he was completely blacked out, he wasn’t even able to hang around in his soul sea while waiting to wake up. He was completely unaware of everything going on around him. While he was in this state the sect master moved forwards and went to pick up Naath from the trench he had now made in the stairs. He quickly took him up the stairs crossing over the highest one. As he did this suddenly a large light shone overhead and slowly descended. It was the baptism. The light gently fell on top of Naaths body and then merged into him. Instantly the pained look on the unconscious Naath’s face eased up.

His breathing calmed down and he seemed to be in a deep restful sleep now. The sect master stopped in stunned state and then just started laughing hysterically. After all of this, of course the young man he was carrying would obtain the baptism. The sect master laughed all the way back to the sects central building with three other elders in tow. However the sect master only felt the two he arrived with, the third was hiding himself as he followed. It didn't take them long to arrive at the central hall where they set Naath down on one of the many vacant elders chairs.

Then the sect master and the other two elders sat down and the sect master spoke up.

“Okay, well, this is unprecedented. This child is the greatest talent that has probably ever been born on this world. Since he came to our sect I think we should protect and raise him, our small sect wont be able to keep someone like this. Even in our wildest dreams. If his fifth level bone hardening breakthrough was that… Insane. Then soon his strength will put all of us beneath him. The question is which one of us gets him as a disciple? Rock paper scissors anyone?”

At this moment the mysterious third elder stepped out from hiding and cleared his throat. The sect master immediately paled when he saw the man and said.

“Gu- Er Guest elder Gui, what bring you here? Please don’t tell me even you want to take this young man as a disciple? You may be a guest elder but this is a serious internal matter and-“

“Oh shut up sect master Rin. What internal matter? This kid has his soul sea open, as per our agreement I will take him under my wing and make him my successor. But his talent is indeed higher than I thought it would be.”

“Elder Gui! You cant be serious?! His soul sea is open? Why?! Why did such a talented young man have to have his soul sea open, damn it all!”

“Haha little Rin, are you feeling aggrieved? Fine how’s this? If you let me take him as my disciple I will officially join the sect as a permanent member and create the formations division to bring in soul masters. This kid is an absolute monster, even I feel bad swiping him out from under your noses like this. I’m old and close to death but I still have a sense of shame after all. I cant take this little monster for nothing.”

“Ah! Elder Gui you mean it?! In that case by all means he shal be your disciple now and congratulations on becoming the 50th official elder member of the sect! With this the kid will still be fully part of the sect and we gain a new department for soul masters! How can I not accept this deal. We can only benefit here. I thank you elder Gui for your contribution to the sect!”

Elder Gui simply let out a huff of cold air before saying “I’ll be taking my new disciple now then, you can find me at my island.”

With that elder Gui waved a hand towards Naath who then suddenly had a black stretcher appear under him made from some form of energy. And then Naath and elder Gui disappeared from the hall. Several minutes later Naath and elder Gui had reappeared on a small island in the middle of a large lake with a simple home built on it. Back at the hall the sect master and the other two elders were slightly gloomy. Especially the examination elder, he was grumbling under his breath about how he had been the one to discover Naath in the first place.

If it weren’t for the new sect rules he would have just directly taken Naath in as his own personal disciple. He was regretting not doing so now as the talent had just been snatched right out from under his nose! The sect master let out a breath and said.

“So elder Fen, you examined that young man right? Tell me about it. He must have caused a commotion no?”

Hearing this the examination elder nodded his head sullenly and went over everything that had happened. He told them about Naath giving himself the surname Kongbai, how he arrived with another reasonable talent, Baal, and with a wind moon wolf no less. As the other two listened to the story they became immersed but then something clicked.

The law enforcement elder cut him off.

“Wait! He broke through only five days ago? Thats insane!”

The sect master suddenly realized this as well and looked at the other two in the hall with him letting out a long breath.

“Damn elder Gui, he really struck gold. No not gold more like he found a metal forged in heaven itself! Haaaa, nothing we can do now but lament a little bit, well we can also put all of our resources and efforts into raising this genius. I’m also quite curious to know what this young mans soul color will be?”

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The other elder after hearing this nodded in agreement and they continued to ruminate and talk about Naath. Meanwhile back at the island elder Gui was checking on Naath’s bodily condition. When he tried to use his soul energy to look at Naath bones though he was horrified to find that his soul energy was absorbed and cut off from him seemingly falling into an infinite abyss. He quickly retracted his energy and broke into a cold sweat, instead he decided to check on the state of Naaths soul sea. When he did this he felt a backlash though and his own soul sea trembled as if some barrier was stopping elder Gui from looking at it at all!

“What the hell is this kid?! Fine he can tell me when he wakes up on his own Hmph.”

Meanwhile while Naath was unconscious he was dreaming, in this dream there was nothing at all. After the nothing he would see a bright white flash that would seem to create an entire universe. After this the universe would seem to fast forward and things would clump together and gather. Soon they would all be gathered at one large section entirely and then begin to decay. After a long period of time everything would be decayed and returned to nothing. This was in fact the time he had spent within the True Void on the night he first unlocked the True Void Arts.

He dreamed of many, many cycles of true void before finally hours later he woke up. When he woke up he let out a soft groan and stretched. His joints all popped as he did so and as Naath continued stretching some began dislocating. However, Naath felt no pain as this happened and even retained complete control of everything while dislocated. When he finished stretching everything simply went back into place perfectly and painlessly. Naath had not realized this at all but elder Gui who was sitting nearby waiting for Naath to wake up paled like he had seen a ghost.

At the same time as elder Gui was horrified he was intrigued, the more he learned about the young man in front of him the more oddities he seemed to find. Elder Gui waited for Naath to fully wake up and look around instead of immediately bombarding him with questions. It was clear that Naath would want to check on the state of his body first. Any cultivator would do this after a normal breakthrough, let alone one like Naath had gone through. In fact that was exactly what Naath was doing right now. As he inspected his own body he froze and seemed completely stunned.

His bones were no longer some organic material, they seemed to be made out of pure crystal. Not only that but every bone had parts to it that seemed to contain the various energies of the True Void Arts. He noticed that his entire skeleton had changed too, now seeming more like the one he had in his last life. But this time every single joint on his body was dislocatable. And painlessly too. This was fully within Naaths control, he knew he would have to practice a bit to control all of his joints with such accuracy but this was an amazing new ability!

This was not the most interesting change that had occurred to his bones though. As he looked carefully he noticed that there were 257 places in his bones that seemed like they were missing something. No, as he checked he realized that that wasn’t accurate, there were 253 places that seemed to be missing something. Four of the places had true void membranes in them fitting perfectly into place and completing the skeletal structure! Naath practically screamed.

“True Void Body!!! Holy shit! This was just a theory, it actually worked?!”

And this he immediately sent his consciousness into his soul sea, once he did so he froze in place. What the hell was this? There was simply nothing here, even space and time seemed non existent! The only thing here was King and Naath could tell by the fact that the rune was currently dimmed that he was unconscious. Naath seeing this ignored the changes in his soul sea and immediately went over to King to make sure he was okay. After looking him over for a minute Naath couldn’t figure anything out, how did the biology of a rune that lived in a soul sea even work?

Naath gave up at this point and returned his attention to his soul sea. It seemed like it had become and embodiment of the void itself somehow. He figured that the changes must be related to his hew skeleton. He would wait for King to wake up and ask him if he had any idea what was going on here. For now he returned his consciousness to the outside world and looked around the room. He noticed he was not on the stairs anymore and in fact there was an elder in the room. Remembering his earlier outburst about his true void body he froze. Elder Gui upon seeing this smiled and spoke up.

“Ah, now that the little monster is awake I can finally talk to him it would seem. So little kiddo, lets start with a name shal we?”

“Elder, my name is Naath, can you uh, ignore my earlier outburst by chance?”

“Haha Naath is it? No surname? Also no dice, I plan to take you as my disciple so I wont be ignoring whatever that outburst was. If you cant share secrets with your master than who can you share them with after all?”

“Oh, Elder I was only born with the name Naath but I have recently given myself the surname Kongbai. Also are you sure you wish to take me as a disciple? What reason do you have?”

“Hmmm Kongbai, void. That wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with that “true void body” you mentioned would it?”

“Can I not say, elder?”

“No there is no choice here, either you become my disciple or you go are going to be kicked out of the sect. Those are the rules, now then do you accept me, elder Gui, as your master? Or should I drop you off outside the gates and remove your name from the sect registry?”

“Elder is there no other way? I joined the sect not even a full week ago, I kind of want the chance to rise through the ranks of the sect myself and form my own group to eventually come out on top and earn my position here.”

“Oho an ambitious one! Let me tell you Naath, your talent makes everyone else here below muscle strengthening completely irrelevant. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if even some people in muscle strengthening cant actually fight you. You absolutely have zero need to go through the ranks of the sect and prove yourself. Your talent has already spoken for itself and refuses not to be heard.

What I can do is take you in as a disciple now but wait for you to prove yourself to yourself ,I guess, and wait here for you to come back. I doubt it will be overly long anyway, we can talk more then. Oh right and don’t take the stairs, for one thing you kind of broke them. Due to that a few elders are looking for you and even the sect master might bother you about it. Secondly, you simply don’t need to now, I’m sure that with your current cultivation you can go up and down the plateau as you please. Hell I’m willing to bet good money you can jump right off the side of the plateau and land without a single injury!”

Naath though on all of this and agreed to the deal, he would go through the sect like he wanted and then he would come back to train under elder Gui.