It was a cold night, one with almost no stars in the sky.

Laying on the rooftop of her inn, Caroline Darrel did not notice such things. All her thoughts were somewhere else.

(They are so strong…) She put her tiny hand in front of her. (And I'm so weak…) Her eyes closed. (But I really want to join their party. If I pursue my dream with them, my chances of success will be so much higher.)

The memory of their fight reaffirmed that thought. Especially Rose's fight. Although Cure Song and Thorn's fights surpassed Rose's in many aspects, one was not visible to her and the other was so fast and complex she had just a vague idea of what happened. In contrast, Rose's fight was still in the realm of what her senses allowed her to understand, albeit barely.

(I wonder when will I be strong enough to stand by their side? Will I ever be…?)

*Sigh*…

There was helplessness in her weak sigh.

(No! I can't let my pessimistic thoughts decide my destiny any longer.) Suddenly, she sat up and took a deep breath, her resolve steeled.

It was with this newfound resolve that she attempted to cultivate, or rather, to establish a connection with the Complex Energy, which was completely invisible and intangible to her.

The main requirement to take the first step onto the cultivation path was to attain the ability to soul-bound Complex Energy. Nobody really knew how this ability came to be or how to train it, it just arbitrarily appeared in people's brains between the ages of 4 to 10.

Caroline Darrel was 8 years old. So the ability to start cultivating could appear in her at any time now.

Unfortunately, her attempt failed. She couldn't feel the Complex Energy at all.

This development depressed her, unsurprisingly.

Still, she didn't give in just yet. Closing her eyes, she focused completely on sensing her brain and tried to soul-bound Complex Energy once again.

It didn't work.

Reluctant to accept this, she tried again, again, and again.

(I quit quitting and decided to go after my dream. I'm just starting!)

With that determination, she continued with her endeavor and only stopped after almost an hour had passed.

She had to stop because she had succeeded!

It was as small as a speck of dust, but it was there! Complex Energy that was under her complete control!

The feeling was like having a tiny star inside her brain. An incredibly tiny, almost imperceptible star.

Caroline Darrel's emotions were in tumult, so much so that she almost forgot what the next step was after soul-bounding one's first Complex Energy particle. Almost.

She unhesitatingly ordered that particle to fuse itself with her physical body.

Immediately after, the particle exploded!

The explosion expanded and soon covered her entire body; but it stopped there, refusing to get out of her.

(Hot, hot, so HOT!)

Every bone, muscle, and organ within her seemed to be ablaze. The scorching pain made her sweat through every pore. In no time, she looked as though a torrential rain had completely washed her.

*Shhh*…! *shhh*…! *shhh*…! ….

Even her little white snakes weren't spared from the searing pain as they hissed at the sky in agony.

With tears on the corners of her eyes, Caroline Darrel gritted her teeth and endured. She endured, endured, endured, and endured.

The longest five minutes of her life passed in such a way.

Almost emaciated, skin dripping-wet, she finally felt the pain slowly recede.

It was exactly at that moment that she suddenly opened her eyes and gasped desperately for air!

Although her body was lighter now, she still felt as though she were submerged under water.

Only after calming herself a bit did she realize that what she was feeling was just ownerless Complex Energy.

The entire world around her looked different to her now, for she had not only obtained the capacity to sense Complex Energy but also acquired the Aura Perception ability!

"Hehe. Hehehehe…" Caroline Darrel was exhilarated. Slowly waving her hands in the air, which was much thicker than usual, she commented: "To think that the Complex Energy could feel this real…"

She had heard about Complex Energy innumerable times, but it had always been something illusory to her and had never thought one could actually touch it.

After a couple of seconds, she focused on the little stars that twinkled within a radio of 200 m around her.

The 'light' of these stars varied greatly in intensity from each other and could be 'seen' even if there were walls or any other physical obstruction between her and the stars.

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"Auras…"

Still, she didn't understand yet the exact correspondence between the Aura intensity and the cultivation stage it belonged to.

Well, that was not so important at this moment. There was something more crucial she had to do right now…

"Yay!" She jumped really high, almost 5 m, with a big smile on her face, eyes sparkling beautifully.

She had reached the First Level Body Evolution stage!

Her strength and lifespan had been significantly upgraded. She could now lift 200 kg and reach 120 years of age with absolute ease!

That wasn't all, from now on she could use her Racial Skill too!

Which reminded her that she needed Complex Energy to use it and that she didn't have any left.

(Right. I should soul-bond all the Complex Energy I can.)

With that in mind, she sat down cross-legged and focused her attention on the ownerless Complex Energy within her brain.

This time the process went a lot smoother than before thanks to her previous experience and the fact that she could now feel the Complex Energy. In just 15 minutes she had already 10 particles of Complex Energy under her control.

(It's just like my mother told me: At the First Level Body Evolution stage, controlling 10 particles at the same time is the limit.

(Anyway, I wonder what kind of poison I got.)

There was only one way to find that out: Activating her Racial Skill. She would automatically understand the most basic characteristics of her skill the moment she used it thanks to the Complex Energy Laws of Cultivation.

The foundation of one's Racial Skill was one's body, the union of one's Complex Energy body and physical body to be precise. So to activate one's Racial Skill, one needed to fuel one's body with Complex Energy.

Caroline Darrel infused a single particle of it into her body and suddenly her soul received a strip of images that explained how her Racial Skill worked.

This information made her abruptly stand up, and left her standing there dazed and speechless for a long, long moment.

When she came back to her senses, she still didn't know what to think.

Looking at the nearby rooftop of the building across the street, she was assaulted by a negligent and crazy idea. And even after a while, it didn't go away. In the end, she succumbed and decided to try it out.

In the next instant, the entire world around her changed. Before her eyes was now her family's inn and her feet onto her neighbor's rooftop!

Flustered, she hastily used another Complex Energy particle to activate her Racial Skill, and instantly returned back to her initial position.

(I-it should be fine. Mother told me that First Level Body Evolution Auras are so small that one has to actively search for it to feel it. Nobody should have 'seen' it yet… probably.)

Only after making sure that the Auras around her hadn't reacted to her movements did she finally heave a sigh of relief.

With that out of her mind, she slowly looked down at her own hand, and muttered in a quivering voice: "A mutant… a mutant…!"

Evidently, her Racial Skill wasn't the gorgon's Poison Control Racial Skill but a skill that allowed her to teleport!

The only explanation to it was indeed that she had actually been a mutant all along.

What an incredible and scary discovery it was!

Incredible because of how rare and unlikely mutants were, and scary for this implied that she was the only one of her kind and that her future wouldn't be like how she had thought it would be and was now completely uncertain.

It took her quite a while to calm herself and accept what had just happened.

Eventually, she raised her head and took a good look at the dark clouds in the sky. (If I use this skill wisely, good things will come out of it… definitely.)

She kept staring at the sky hopefully for an undetermined amount of time.

Then, all of a sudden, her body trembled, her eyes widened, and her breathing became ragged!

"No! No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!" Shaking her head furiously, she struggled to dismiss the insane idea that had just now popped up in her mind.

"I said no!" Fuming, she strode toward the stairs to the fourth floor of the inn.

But it was useless. It was completely useless. The idea was just too preposterous to be shrugged off so easily.

Before reaching the stairs, she stopped and sighed ruefully, head hanging low.

"Let's hope this doesn't kill me…" Muttering this, she abruptly vanished.

At an altitude of 315 000 km above sea level, a place devoid of Complex and Mystical Energy.

The first thing Caroline Darrel did after appearing was to hold her breath, and the second was to get utterly amazed.

No painting could possible capture such vastness, complexity, or beauty.

Drifting clouds of varying tones, misty seas, towering mountains, lands of almost every color, and even the floating island of the Scientist's Guild were all part of the scenery Caroline Darrel beheld.

From this place, she could view the entirety of the Continent of Civilized Races.

The Broken Earth Kingdom looked like a giant prairie with hundreds of forests and lakes, and riddled with innumerable 'cracks'. She knew these 'cracks' were immense rivers, and that because of them this kingdom was named 'Broken Earth Kingdom'.

The High Mountain Kingdom, the Monster Human Kingdom, the Shadow Human Kingdom, and the Harpy Kingdom were all clearly differentiated from each other thanks to their unique geographical characteristics.

Even the Dead Land, the Civilized Race War battlefield, was completely within her sight.

Due to how dazed she was, she nearly asphyxiated for being at that height for too long.

She was forced to teleport back to her rooftop in a fluster.

*Pant!* *pant* *pant!* ….

Caroline Darrel gasped for air greedily for almost half a minute.

"T-that was… absolutely… awesome…"

When she recovered, she breathed in and held her breath, then teleported again to where she had just been.

This time she didn't look down, but up.

There was only the satellite Blue in her line of sight, but it alone was beautiful enough to accelerate her heartbeats.

There were so many stars, so many there was more light than darkness.

Caroline Darrel only gawked at the sky for a brief period of time before shaking her head. She hadn't come here to do that.

Although she was pretty high, the gravity should still be strong enough to pull her down; but she wasn't falling at all.

There was obviously a reason for that to happen.

Gingerly, she stretched out her hand toward the sky. First, the tips of her fingers disappeared, and then her entire fingers. Caroline Darrel didn't seem surprised at all as her hand slowly vanished. She knew that the cause of this phenomenon was the invisible barrier that covered the entire almost-spherical world.

Caroline Darrel continued inserting her arm into the barrier, and, sensing that nothing was amiss, nodded to herself.

Knowing already that it was safe, she teleported 2 m in front of her.

What she saw next were the satellites White and Red along with countless stars.

It was the sky looked from the other side of the world!

Although she had heard of this before, experiencing it herself was still exhilarant!

Gravity was almost zero around the World Barrier, that's why Caroline Darrel wasn't falling. It was reasonable for this to be the case since at the World Barrier gravity pulled with equal strength from both sides.

Due to this barrier that was to date impossible to bypass–even teleportation didn't work–, the planet Tifitia was often referred to as The Perfect Prison.

Caroline Darrel looked down.

Clouds; and beyond them, a mirror-like ocean that if Caroline Darrel didn't know any better, she would confound it with the sky itself.

Turning her gaze around, she soon found a dome made of raging wind and thick clouds so massive it enclosed an area two times the size of the entire Continent of Civilized Races!

The Forbidden Dark Lands.

After gawking at such beautiful scenery for a couple of seconds, she couldn't hold her breath any longer, so she reluctantly teleported back.

*Pant!* *pant* *pant!* ….

It took her a long while to stabilize her breathing.

(Perhaps, being how I'm now, they'll accept me in their party…) Thinking about how amazing her Racial Skill was, a hopeful light flared in her eyes.