章 13: Strange variation?

"Haaaaa..., I finally broke through into the Spirit realm," Asura said while laughing like crazy.

The Spirit Realm is an elevated plane of existence that cultivators enter after breaking through a significant bottleneck in their cultivation. It represents a major leap forward in spiritual attainment and power.

Compared to the Temper Realm that Asura previously resided in, the Spirit Realm has much denser spiritual energy in the environment that cultivators can absorb to further strengthen their cultivation. The spiritual energy in the Spirit Realm is also of a higher quality and purity, allowing for greater gains.

The physical body starts to undergo major changes after entering the Spirit Realm as well. The body becomes more spiritualized and can withstand higher levels of spiritual energy flowing through it. Many cultivators experience transformations to their physical form that grant them supernatural abilities.

Some of the benefits of residing in the Spirit Realm were:

• Faster cultivation speed - The abundant spiritual energy allows cultivators to breakthrough to higher stages at an accelerated pace if you had enough talent.

• Ability to train spiritual abilities and control spiritual energy - Skills that were not available in the Temper Realm, like spiritual attacks and summoning spiritual weapons.

• Longer lifespan - The more spiritual the body becomes, the slower aging processes occur. Many Spirit Realm cultivators live for hundreds or even a thousand year.

•Access to rare spiritual plants and treasures - Many valuable resources only appear in the Spirit Realm, which grants power-ups to those who obtain them.

Lastly, in the Spiritual Realm, spiritual spaces would be formed where you could store your spiritual weapons, spiritual plants, and any other things which had spiritual energy on them.

"Let's check my spiritual space," Asura thought. His spiritual space looked average in size but there was something odd - it was dark. "I thought spiritual spaces were usually blue or white in color," Asura was confused.

What Asura didn't know was that the spiritual spaces of normal human cultivators were always white, blue, or sometimes even golden in color. Asura was unaware that he was not completely human; another part of him was currently dormant.

If that other part awoke, he would gain terrifying power but also develop an arrogant behavior that looked down upon everything else in the world. In that other part's mind, it was the only supreme existence.

Asura entered his spiritual space and surveyed his surroundings. Instead of the typically bright and expansive space, he found himself in a narrow, dark cave. Tendrils of shadow crept along the walls as an ominous chill filled the air.

"This cannot be right," Asura muttered, bewildered. He pondered what could be causing his strange spiritual space. As he did, the shadows around him seemed to pulse and writhe, as if reacting to his thoughts.

A sliver of doubt entered Asura's mind, he thought " What if my spiritual space has gone through some kind of variation? Can the darkness in my spiritual space be an indication of some dormant power within, waiting to awaken? "

Asura quickly pushed the thought away - he had trained as a normal cultivator and nothing extraordinary had ever happened before.

Still, Asura made a mental note to investigate further. If anything in his spiritual space changed, he would seek guidance from some master of the Xiaio sect. For now, Asura exited his dark spiritual space and steeled his focus back on stabilizing his cultivation level.

Asura remembered how that fairy had saved his life in the Dark Forest using spiritual attacks. She had easily killed a rank 4 magical beast. From that point on, Asura vowed that when he reached the Spiritual Realm, he would learn spiritual attacks as well.

Now that he had broken through, Asura made up his mind. Tomorrow, he would go to the Xiao Sect, more specifically the Royal College. The Royal College was part of the Xiao Sect but operated independently, with its own rules and regulations.

He would go there to find some spiritual attack techniques. But he also had another motive - he wanted to spar with someone strong to see how much more powerful he had become since before. The sparring partner he chose was Su Lin because she was the only friend he had who was also in the Spiritual Realm.

Although she didn't talk to him much, Asura knew that if he asked her, she would not refuse.

Sparring with Su Lin would allow Asura to gauge his current strength compared to before, when he was in the Tempering Realm. He trusted Su Lin and knew she would be an honest but formidable opponent. Their fight would reveal many of Asura's weaknesses and shortcomings, helping him plot his path forward in the Spiritual Realm.

Asura was fascinated by the fairy's spiritual attack, the ease with which she had killed the rank 4 magical beast. After witnessing that, spiritual attacks became an ambition for him. Now that he had broken into the Spiritual Realm, he could start learning and cultivating such skills.

The Royal College's spiritual attack techniques would provide Asura with a foundation upon which to build his growing powers. Combined with persistent cultivation and experimentation, he was confident he could one day reach a level similar to the fairy he saw all those months ago. That memory had helped spur Asura's ambitions, and now he would chase them to their logical conclusion.

The journey had just begun.