Naath, Brutus and of course King who was attached to Naath started to once again make progress towards the nearby Raging River City. Every few days the group would pause, Naath would cultivate and go hunting with Brutus to top off their food. Weeks flashed by and turned into months in what felt like an instant to the trio had been traveling for 4 months. On one of the days when the trio was resting Naath sat down and had Brutus go a distance away he felt the sensation that his bones were ready to break through again. The shock wave was even more powerful than the previous, almost reaching the edge of the forest in one direction. Naath also felt like he had compressed his energy slightly more than he had before.

After this breakthrough Naath’s group continued on their way through the forest and towards the city once more. After another month Naath sat down and managed to create a third True Void Membrane, this one being on the back of his head. He chose this location because in his previous life on earth due to repeatedly hitting his head the nerves had receded to near the base of his skull. This caused a bump and nerve cluster that Naath had grown accustomed to and he was now using the True Void Arts to simulate that being there again. Once he had finished making this True Void Membrane Naath was both ecstatic and depressed. The amount of energy he needed to make each consecutive one made him feel disheartened at times. But the plus side was that each new membrane would shorten the period of adjustment for breakthroughs.

After shaking off this feeling the group continued forwards again this time traveling for a full two and a half months before anything eventful happened. They were nearing the edge of the massive forest now and would soon come out of it. The Raging River city was only another half months journey away. Naath was getting worried that he wouldn’t be able to keep his promise to the elders in the village about reaching the third stage of bone hardening before he arrived. However, he now had the feeling that his body was ready for another breakthrough! This brought a great sense of joy and relief to Naath all at once.

It took him some time to settle his state of mind so he could meditate and focus on his breakthrough. To help him achieve this breakthrough, Naath took out the tree stump and sat on it, allowing him to grow more comfortable quickly. Once his mind was finally calm and he could once again focus on cultivation he began to cycle his true void energy through his membranes and draw it into his bones when the cycles were done. After only a minute Naath had already needed to compress the energy in his bones, which was even faster than last time by about ten seconds. While this might not seem significant it showed that each true void membrane was able to shorten Naath’s time spent to break through by that much. This effect would only grow exponentially and it was very possible that in the future there would be a time when Naath would simply need to have the thought of breaking through and it would be done.

Each compression after the first one took slightly longer however. Now at the 45 minute mark, Naath had just finished his 21’st compression. But strangely Naath felt like his bones still had not reached a limit yet, having this feeling he pressed forwards and started compressing the energy for a 22nd time. After a long ten minutes, Naath had fully compressed his energy a 22nd time! After filling his bones again past this compression though, he felt like his bones had indeed reached their limit. Finally, he let the energy build until his bones snapped and turned to powder.

*BANG~~!*

Naaths bones let out a noise like a volcanic eruption, even his own ears began ringing from the intense sound wave. With him as the epicenter the massive sound wave spread out for almost five hundred kilometers! However, even with this intense sound, Naath was distracted by something else. His bones had not completely turned to powder this time. At least some of them had parts that remained intact even after being destroyed by the energy. The part that remained seemed to be the central part that was built from the energy of nothing. Naath was confused but mystified as he turned his attention inwards and watched his own bones reconstruct themselves from this central core.

Not only this, but Naath was also struggling with the fact that he was now genuinely feeling a sense of enjoyment from the sensation of his bones being broken like this. He was worried that he would become addicted to pain, even in his old life on earth he loved combat. This new sense of enjoying the pain would spell trouble for him if he couldn’t keep himself in check. As he thought of all of this inside of his soul sea King, was sitting in stunned silence, at first he was simply being silent and waiting for Naath to finish his breakthrough so as to not disturb him. Now though, he was in stunned silence by the fact that Naath’s bones had that central part remain during his breakthrough. This was a sign of something truly rare that only the most talented individuals could manage to do.

While the two of them were distracted by this, the sound wave passed over Brutus and he whimpered slightly because it caused his ears to ache. Thankfully it only lasted for an instant before the sound wave spread outwards once more and passed him. In relief Brutus wagged his tail and made his way over to Naath. After the shock wave spread out for 200 kilometers it dissipated, now only the sound was traveling for the remaining 300 kilometers still the sound was akin to roaring thunder blasting in an apocalyptic storm. When the sound wave reached the city it was not as overly loud but it was still more than enough to get the many cultivators and even some people in the sect that the city built itself to to look up.

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The younger people didn’t notice it or care much but the people of the older generation had immediately perked up and looked in the direction the sound wave had come from. The elders with their experience were able to tell just how far that sound had come from and that it was the distinct sound of a cultivator breaking through. Immediately the elders in the sect started to issue orders and send out flyers to the nearby city. They knew that whoever made that sound was a true genus cultivator. Within the hour flyers were printed out and posted all over the nearby city and the various disciples of the sect were made aware to be on the look out for a bone hardening cultivator coming from the forest that felt more powerful than their cultivation.

The entire city was quickly stirred up into a panic as everyone wanted to find this genius cultivator and earn the favor of the sect. The reward they were offering was after all joining as a core disciple, this was a position in the sect most people could only ever look up to and dream of. Every single person in the city started to move their gaze onto the forest waiting fro a cultivator to emerge. The news was more than enough to stir the whole city into action. Not long after waiting though a hunting party came out of the woods. Among them was a cultivator who had clearly just broken through to the fifth stage of bone hardening. His energy was unstable but defiantly a little bit denser than that of someone for his cultivation level. Soon an entire sea of people surrounded the man in the hunting part who seemed to be about 19 years old.

He was brought back to the Raging river city and when everyone saw how young the man that they thought was the genius cultivator was they were absolutely amazed and astonished. It was quickly revealed that the name of this young man was Qill and he readily accepted and bragged that he was indeed the person they were looking for. Nobody in the hunting part said a word because they truly thought that Quill was the one they were looking for as well. His breakthrough had in fact created a large sound traveling for probably half a kilometer so they knew he was definitely talented enough to be the person they were looking for.

When Quill was taken into the sect he was welcomed warmly by all of the elders and immediately given the position of a core disciple. As for the group of people that had brought him back they were all welcomed into the fold of the sect quickly and thought they were not all made core disciples they were still given high positions.

The sect had even held a welcoming ceremony making Quill the most famous member of the sect and the most known face in the Raging River city as well. The celebration lasted for a full day before it finally died down. Meanwhile Naath was still inside of the forest int he same camping site he had made before his breakthrough. Right now he was struggling with a question. How was he supposed to explain his True Void Arts cultivation method to the sect elders when he got there? After struggling with this question for a full day he finally broke down and asked King for advice.

“Ahahaha Naath, you cant even figure out something this simple? When they ask what you cultivate tell them it isn’t convenient to answer as it is a secret. When they ask what energies you use act sheepish and like your struggling. When they persist in asking just ‘reluctantly’ tell them that you have an innate art of devouring. Only show your attraction and destruction energies to them and they will buy is like its scammers gold! An innate art is incredibly rare but not so much that even a backwater place like this shouldn’t have heard of it.

Trust me, just do that and they will let you in without any real issues at all, now lets set out for this sect of yours. A shining gem of a talent like yourself needs to be shown to the world not hidden under the gravel!”

“Hey king while I’m grateful for the advice, you have a little something brown on your nose, could you perhaps not kiss my ass so deeply?”

“Why you little….!!!”

“Haha but no seriously, I was pissed at you at first but it’s been almost a year, I’m over it. Your even trapped in my soul sea for an indefinite period of time, well at least until the end of our contract. Just call me young master and well be fine you’re going to be providing me with training anyhow, at least in soul cultivation which brings up my next question…”

“Wait, did you say trapped?! I can leave whenever I want… Right?”

“Now would you look at that you really were panicking earlier, but then again I guess something can be said about how petty I am. In the soul contract I added that you cant leave without my death or fulfillment of the agreement. Check your own soul and you will know that I’m not joking, I just used a little but of psychology and you fell right into it. Just had to say the word “leave” instead of “released” at the right point and you read it as such. Sorry about that but were here now, so get comfy.

Anyway, my question,”

“Wait! You seriously?! Arghhhh really a vicious and meticulous person. Sigh, if it’s a fortune it wont be a misfortune, if its a disaster it cant be avoided. I feel badly for anyone who even tries to cross you in the future. Now you said you had a question?”

“Yes I do, how am I supposed to cultivate my soul while you are inside of it?”

“Damn it all I must be going senile! Either that or I haven’t been around anyone intelligent in millennia, which is also possible I’ve been trapped on this world for a while after all. Let me think for a little bit on this one, your True Void Arts make this a thorny problem. While I think, you join the sect, I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got it figured out. I’ll need to modify a few arts and techniques for this.”