Chapter 47
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On the roof of the apartment building.
It was sunny and warm with a slight wind, the perfect weather to be outside.
Zairen stood in front of Alivia and Finn, holding out two open palms. In them were two pills: one crimson pill with a fluctuating red radiance coming from within, and one dark brown pill with a fluctuating light brown radiance.
“Here they are.”
“Whoa!” Alivia and Finn excitedly grabbed their respective pills and inspected them. Immediately noticing the fluctuating lights from within them, they were amazed. What kind of fantastical pill was this?
“This is the Spirit Awakening Pill?” Finn excitedly asked.
“Yep,” Zairen answered. “Well, technically, these are specific variations of it. Your pill is called the Tumbling Earth Pill, and Alivia’s is called the Burning Heaven Pill. Swallow it and meditate for a while, and within a few hours you’ll have your spirit energy awakening.”
After they had had their conversation in the morning, Zairen had spent an hour and a half refining the two Spirit Awakening Pills, and then they had all together set out toward the empty roof. Although he could’ve taken less time with the refining, he wanted the pills to be perfect, so that there was no chance that accidents could occur.
Although the Spirit Awakening Pill was technically an advanced type of pill to refine, especially these highly advanced variations, it only used basic ingredients and was basically no problem for someone like Zairen, even with his weak cultivation.
“Are there any side effects?” Finn asked curiously. This kind of an amazing pill… it seemed too perfect to be true!
“Nope,” Zairen confirmed. “Over the years, the recipe’s been pretty much perfected. It’s extremely unlikely that there’ll be any sort of complication.”
“So if we swallow this…” Alivia spoke up. “Finn will be able to control earth, and I’ll be able to control fire?”
“Something like that,” Zairen laughed. “See for yourselves! Don’t worry, I’ll be watching over you two. Even if something unexpected happens, I’ll take care of it right away.”
“Alright! Thank you Zairen!” Alivia and Finn simultaneously thanked Zairen. They completely trusted that if Zairen was here, nothing could possibly go wrong.
They looked down at their pills, admiring their smooth contours and flashy colors. Each pill shone with a bright inner light. Was this light a metaphor for the inner light it could bring out of them?
Words flashed in front of their eyes. Destiny. Adventure. Serendipity. Karma. The cause, the effect, the beginning, the end. The feeling was inexplicable - even if everything in their lives had gone differently and they had all been completely different people, at this very moment of time, one way or the other, they still would have inevitably gathered here to perform this ritual.
These little pills… were they start of something new, the start of something amazing?
There was only one way to find out!
Alivia and Finn collectively took a deep breath. Then, in one smooth movement, they brought the pills to their mouths.
“IT’S GO TIME!” Finn yelled unnecessarily, imitating a “cool” fighter stance.
They both sat down and began meditating.
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Half an hour passed with nothing of note. Alivia and Finn meditated calmly and Zairen watched closely for any signs.
Suddenly, an intense aura emerged from Alivia!
“Huh?!” Zairen’s eyes widened.
It had only been half an hour! Something was already happening with Alivia?
He steadied himself and paid closer attention to her, knowing that the most important moments had arrived. Within moments, Alivia would cross the threshold - from ordinary person to spirit cultivator! Once that happened, her life would never be the same.
The aura coming from Alivia slowly increased for about a minute, until it hit a peak, and then started to slowly dim.
Finally, a few minutes later, when the aura had completely disappeared, Alivia seemed to have sensed that something had changed. Opening her eyes, she looked at Zairen curiously. “Did it work?”
“Yes… yes, it did,” Zairen laughed a bit awkwardly, still completely amazed. “Feel for yourself!”
“Hm?” Alivia was at first a bit confused, but then closed her eyes again and began to feel for changes.
“Oh wait!” She suddenly exclaimed. “I feel… something different. There’s like a flow of something in my veins!”
The more she inspected her own body, the more amazed she became. A slow-flowing, familial-feeling new substance had appeared in her veins. It had a powerful aura to it, yet was gentle at the same time… the more she felt it, the more she liked it. It was almost like she had grown another arm, like there was an entirely new organ in her body!
“That’s your spirit energy.” Zairen explained with a smile. “You can use that to practice different arts.”
“And manipulate flame?!” Alivia sounded extremely excited. “How do I manipulate flames? Can you teach me, Zairen?”
“Well… that’s kind of advanced…” Zairen began to say hesitantly.
It seemed Alivia had an obsession with manipulating flames.
“Oh, come on. Please?! Please?” Alivia interjected, getting up. She quickly ran toward Zairen, and before he could react, was holding his hands and waving them back and forth pleadingly. “Please?”
“Fine!” Suddenly remembering a certain event, Zairen felt his muscles tense up and hurriedly agreed.
“Yay!” Alivia celebrated and did a little dance.
“Anyway…” Zairen looked away and coughed. He couldn’t believe he had just caved to a nine-year-old. “Really, to just create a flame from your spirit energy, it’s not too complicated. Just visualize the flame in your head and then attempt to channel your spirit energy to mold and create that flame.”
Even though he himself did not have a fire spirit energy affinity, from his numerous travels, he had learned the general idea, and could use his knowledge in cultivating darkness affinity type spirit energy to apply to fire affinity type spirit energy.
“Visualize the flame…” Alivia pondered. She quickly sunk into thought, rubbing her chin thoughtfully with one hand and holding her other hand palm-up in front of her, as if attempting a magic trick.
“Don’t worry if you don’t get it immediately!” Zairen immediately added. “The average cultivator doesn’t start to figure out how to channel their spirit energy at even a basic level until nearly a week after their awakening.”
He didn’t want Alivia to get discouraged. These kinds of things were always processes. Patience and dedication were virtues.
“Oh, I got it!” Alivia shouted out.
Zairen looked over.
In Alivia’s hand, there was a small red flame. Flickering like a light, the fire was not strong but extremely pure in essence.
“...”
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Flabbergasted. Zairen was absolutely flabbergasted. His mouth was gaped wide open, frozen, like the statue of an opera singer.
What had happened? It had only been… not even a minute! He had looked away once, and when he had turned back, there was already a flame in her hand.
How could such a thing could be possible?!
Even Zairen himself, when he had first started, had taken an hour before he could finally channel his spirit energy a bit, and he had been called a god-blessed talent. But Alivia could do it within just a minute? A minute?! And just casually, without any serious effort? What kind of god-given talent was that?
He stared at the clueless girl holding her flame in front of him, his head whirling. What would her future hold? From what she had just demonstrated, her potential was limitless!
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At that moment, even Madam Sue was gasping in the back of Zairen’s mind. “Talented!”
Seeing Zairen’s speechlessness, Alivia couldn’t help but get worried. “Is there something wrong? Did I do it right?”
“No, no! That’s good!” Zairen snapped out of his trance and waved his hand. “Um… well, it’s a good start, but the fire seems pretty flickery and wild. You should work on controlling it better. Ideally, the spirit should be an extension of the body - you should be able to be manipulate it just as you manipulate your own limbs.”
He gave Alivia a meaningful glance. “Even though it may not sound glorious, control is the most important aspect for a spirit energy cultivator. If you have a lot of power but can’t control it effectively, what’s the use? In contrast, even if you only have a little bit of power but you can control it extremely well, you can strategically pinpoint an enemy’s weaknesses and take down people who, on paper, are much stronger than you! Furthermore, even in terms of raw power, control plays a larger role than you might think.”
Alivia nodded thoughtfully. This made a lot of sense.
Staring down onto the flickering flame on her palm, she bit her lip. She could barely even keep the flame alive, much less any finer control! Staring down at the mesmerizing red shapes, she silently promised herself to work much harder in controlling the flame. Compared to Zairen, she still had a long way to go!
However, she couldn’t help but develop a sense of wonder. The flame was clearly touching her hand, but to her, it wasn’t hot at all. Instead, it was comfortably warm, and she sensed a very close familiarity with it.
Seeing Alivia focus her attention back on her spirit flame, Zairen stopped bothering her and let her experiment for herself. He had given her a grandiose lecture, as if what she had done was no big deal, but it was difficult to appear unimpressed. What freakish talent!
Yet only half an hour later, Zairen got another shock. Finn had his spirit awakening!
This time, Zairen was completely floored. Maybe, if there had only been one child, it would have been somewhat believable … but both of the children? It was mind-boggling. One awakened in half an hour, and then other awakened in an hour!
One thing after another, Alivia and Finn proved that they were absolute geniuses in spirit energy.
After giving Finn the same speech as he had given Alivia, Zairen was shocked once again.
Only half an hour after giving Finn the method to produce earth spirit energy… he managed to do it, a small amount of earthly spirit energy spilling from his palm.
It wasn’t as freakish as Alivia… but what the hell was going on? Zairen felt like he was losing his mind. He had seldom seen such geniuses before in his life… and now he had consecutively seen two! What were the chances?
After showing Alivia and Finn the basic way to cultivate their spirit energy, Zairen retired back into the apartment. After all those shocks, he felt fatigued.
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“Finally found it,” Zairen whispered, a bit of exasperation in his voice.
Zairen, Alivia, and Finn were standing frigidly in front of the facade of an old, dilapidated-looking three-story building in the city. The walls of the building were a plain dirty grey, completely unnoticeable and dull, and the windows were foggy and smeared. With how dirty and empty it looked, it almost seemed abandoned, and so far, they hadn’t seen a single person approach it.
The only way to know that they had indeed reached the right place was that inscribed above the shabby-looking door were a few small and unnoticeable words: Black Cloud Academy.
Three days had passed since Alivia and Finn had awakened their spirit energies. It was now the afternoon of their fifth day in the city. These three days, Zairen continuously trained his Silent Shadow Art and Alivia and Finn worked on getting the hang of manipulating their spirit energy. The days passed quickly.
The governor, after witnessing Alivia and Finn’s sudden awakening of spirit energy, had been shocked speechless. He could only look at Zairen amazedly and shake his head. After that, he didn’t dawdle long and minded his own matters, trusting Zairen to train the two kids well.
The second, third, and fourth nights had been peaceful and uneventful. No spirit fluctuations had reached Zairen in the apartment, and he was almost ashamed to admit that he had slept all three nights comfortably in Alivia’s arms. Accepting that it would inevitably happen, he had quickly gotten used to it, and all the awkwardness had disappeared.
Today, Zairen had casually noticed that since their awakenings, Alivia and Finn had significantly increased their spirit energies. Their spirit energy pools were multiplying, and their skills were rapidly improving. By now, they could actually be considered cultivators. Thus, he had made a quick decision that today, they would go and check out the Black Cloud School. If they liked it, maybe they would enroll.
The problem was, the school was surprisingly hard to find.
It had taken them an excruciatingly long time to find this building. Even though Zairen knew the general location of it, the building was extremely unnoteworthy and just looked like any other apartment building in the area - there was virtually no fanfare. Furthermore, the sign inscription above the entrance was basically invisible!
Finally, after a full hour of searching and passing by the school unwittingly, they had finally found it. Now, they stared directly at it.
Black Cloud School. It looked depressing.
“This is it?” Finn couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose. “Are you sure it’s open?” It looked so small and crappy-looking...
“Yup,” Zairen responded. “Come on, let’s knock.”
He beckoned his two companions forward, and together, they walked toward the door.
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“Jannie, you feeling alright?” Headmaster Yuan asked.
Situated inside a small dorm-like room, Headmaster Yuan was sitting in a chair next to a blonde teenager lying in a bed, looking to be around eighteen years old. Facing the teenager in the bed, he had a concerned expression.
“Yes, grandfather, I’m fine,” the blonde teenager named Jannie responded. Lying face up and staring blankly at the ceiling, he seemed to be in a depressed mood. “But just like usual, I can’t feel my spirit energy. It’s gone.”
His tone of voice was bleak, as if there was nothing left striving for in this world.
Seeing his grandson like this, Headmaster Yuan felt his heart hurt. After a moment of silence, he began to speak hopefully: “Maybe I can contact Dr. Yamagi. You’ve heard of him, right? He’s done a lot of great work before...”
“No, grandfather,” Jannie responded exasperatedly. “I’ve told you this a hundred times. You should stop wasting your money - everyone knows injuries to your meridians are impossible to heal. It was my fault that I rushed into my cultivation, anyway.”
Headmaster Yuan looked into Jannie’s dead eyes and couldn’t help but feel depressed.
After his grandson had accidentally injured himself during his cultivation three years ago, he had tried calling numerous professionals in to try to treat him. Yet, it was to no avail. No one could do anything. In a flash, three years had passed, with no improvement at all.
Now, it seemed that Jannie had lost all hope.
It was a tremendous fall from grace. In just a single moment, he had changed from being a god-gifted talent with a lightning spirit affinity to basically a cripple. Not that he couldn’t walk, but now devoid of spirit energy.
Because of this, he had suffered countless ridicule from others, to the point that he was often reluctant to go outside and show his face anymore.
Jannie gave a large sigh and met Headmaster Yuan’s eyes. “Grandfather, how do you have time to tend to me, anyway? Don’t you have to run the school?”
“The school?” Headmaster Yuan stilled for a moment, and then sunk his head. It was his turn to sigh. “School already ended for today. You know we don’t have many students left - there’s not too much to attend to. They’re currently learning for themselves.” Leaning backward, he massaged his scalp with his fingers. “Of the people that are left, no one has as much talent as you...”
Hearing his grandfather’s bleak answer, Jannie couldn’t help but feel even more depressed.
One thing after another, things were going wrong. He had ruined his cultivation, and now, the school was disintegrating!
When it rains, it pours.
Ring, ring. A distant doorbell sounded.
“There’s someone at the door,” Headmaster Yuan turned and remarked with a bit of surprise. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had showed up at the door.
“Do you think it’s new school applicants?” Jannie asked with a bit of anticipation.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Headmaster Yuan sighed. “I’ll go see who it is.”
He slowly turned and got out of his chair.
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“It’s taking a while,” Finn whined. “Are you sure there’s anyone here?”
“Yes,” Zairen affirmed. “Stop whining. They’ll answer the door soon.”
Zairen, Alivia, and Finn stood a short distance from the front of the Black Cloud School entrance, waiting for someone to answer the door. They had rung the doorbell a few minutes ago to little response.
As if on cue, just at that moment, the door opened. Behind the door frame was an old decrepit-looking man wearing a blue robe.
‘It’s him.’ Seeing this old man, Zairen’s eyes couldn’t help but light up. He recognized this man: it was the headmaster that he had spied on three nights ago. Today, he somehow seemed even more at the end of his rope that he had back then.
‘Hm?’ Seeing that the visitors were small children, the old man couldn’t disguise a small degree of surprise in his eyes. “Hi, welcome to Black Cloud School. I am the headmaster; you can call me Headmaster Yuan. How may I help you?”
Of the three children standing in front of the door, only Zairen wasn’t a bit taken aback by Headmaster Yuan’s appearance. This was the headmaster of the school? This decrepit-looking old man?
However, they quickly recovered. Just because he looked this way didn’t mean he wasn’t wise or powerful.
“Greetings, Headmaster Yuan,” Zairen gave a slight smile. “My name is Zairen, and these two” - he gestured toward Alivia and Finn - “are Alivia and Finn. We just moved into the area, and heard about Black Cloud School. We would like to apply to enter.”
Headmaster Yuan was taken aback. As the words sunk in, he quickly became noticeably enthusiastic. “Apply to enter the school? Really?”
When was the last time he had welcomed new students?
However, within moments he had calmed down and his expression became a bit suspicious. “You kids seem young. Are you sure you three have awakened your spirit energies yet?”
“Yes, we have!” Alivia responded cheerily. “Mine awakened three days ago!” She smiled and patted her chest.
“Yeah, mine too!” Finn added on, copying Alivia’s pose.
Headmaster Yuan stared back at them with a frozen expression. Both of them awakened their spirit energies on the same day? And merely three days ago? Was this a joke?
“Yes, we all have,” Zairen replied calmly.
Headmaster Yuan furrowed his brows. Inwardly, he was having trouble believing such a story. Even if these children had truly awakened their spirit energy this early, then they would be valued talents! Why would they come to this dingy little Black Cloud School?
Were they playing a prank?
He let out a small sigh. He wasn’t dumb, and was well aware of how bad of a reputation the school had developed since Jannie had injured his cultivation. Since then, they had less and less students apply, until finally, nearly no one came to the door. This had been a disastrous situation that they had been struggling to deal with. With no students, there was no tuition, and with no tuition, no funds. Without any funds, the school wouldn’t be able to operate. The school had been on the brink of bankruptcy for some time.
Although there had been no real students in the past stretch of time who had come to apply, there had been some mean-spirited people who had heard of the academy’s bad situation and came to disparage them, often coming to their front door to mock them. Were these such people? But they were so young!
After a moment of thought, he decided to test them. “Alright, then as part of the application process, we first need to conduct a test to measure your spirit affinity levels.”
“That’s fine,” Zairen immediately consented. “Can we do it now?” He was quite familiar with such a process, having gone through many things similar in his previous life.
“Um... sure,” Headmaster Yuan slowly consented, a bit taken aback by Zairen’s quick response. “Come with me to the testing room.”
He beckoned everyone forward into the building. The last one in, Zairen closed the door behind them.
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