章 10: In The Middle Of The Forest

After the tournament, all schools sent invitations to Issei, all saying that he would immediately become an inner disciple. Not only that, even the more powerful school, the Azure Lightning School sent an invitation, saying that he would immediately become a core-disciple. The reason for that bonus was because of the youth that Issei had defeated.

Obviously, Shinso ignored all of them. If Issei was a normal cultivator, he would without a doubt choose the Azure Lightning School, but Issei was in a rather precarious situation at the moment. He could only improve by refining Spiritual Medicine, and the only school that could give him absurd amounts of it was the Heavenly Might School.

After respectfully declining all other invitations, Shinso accepted the Heavenly Might School invitation, thus making Issei an inner disciple.

After that, they stayed there for a few more days for some other events. After it was time, Shinso and Issei said their goodbyes, and Issei departed with the represantants from Heavenly Might in their carriage. Since coming here, Issei's baggage was already stored in his cosmos sack.

Cosmos sacks were a type of inter-spatial storing devices. Although small, inside of them, they would normally have meters and meters of space. Just by thinking, one could immediately take something or put something in their cosmos sack. It was also what Issei had used to store his special blades.

Those special blades were made by Shinso. In each one of them, there would be a type of explosion Spirit Formation that could ignite on it's casters whim.

Spirit Formation was a type of ability that did not make use of Spiritual Power. Instead, it made use of another thing called Spirit Power.

Although everyone in the world was born with Spiritual Power, people born with Spirit Power were few within few. It was something that could only be acquired by luck the moment they are born. Some people have it, some people don't.

If a number was to be given, it would be that one out of twenty thousand people is born with Spirit Power.

Spirit Power has two main uses. The first use is detection. People with Spirit Power would be able to feel the Spiritual Power in their surroundings. As such, they could easily tell when an opponent was about to attack or if there was one hiding.

There were only three ways to be able to bypass the detection of Spirit Power. The first one was to have Spirit Power superior to the other, which meant that the detection of Spirit Power could only detect beings with Spirit Power lower or equal to theirs.

The second way would be some profound Martial Skills that could somehow mask its caster presence. Martial Skills on that level would normally be rank 8 Martial Skills, something that was considered a legend in the entire Profound Sky Continent, with the excpetion of the Divine Phoenix Country. They have even stronger Martial Skills.

The third and final way would be to have an unfathomably deep realm of cultivation, at least four entire realms above the caster.

The second use of Spirit Power would be to power Spirit Formation Techniques. Spirit Formations were, in a few words, a barrier made out of Spirit Power. Depending on the amount of mastery of Spirit Power that a person possess, they could make the barrier acquire various shapes, fly in the air, create a beast made out of Spirit Formation, make explosion Spirit Formations...

In short, as long as you have imagination, you can virtually do anything with Spirit Formation, except creating things such as the five elements, fire, water, wood, metal, earth, and creating living beings.

Spirit Power was also divided in ranks. To determine the rank of a Spirit Formation, all that was needed to be done would be to observe the color of the Spirit Formation.

The weakest one would be white, followed by gray, blue, purple and gold. World Spiritists were also divided in ranks according to their the color of their Spirit Formation.

For example, people who could bring out white colored spirit formation would be a White-cloak World Spiritist.

People who could use gray colored Spirit Formation would be Gray-cloak World Spiritists, and so on...

In the Profound Sky Continent, Blue-cloak World Spiritist were considered the top World Spiritists. Never before had there been a Purple-cloak World Spiritist in the continent, not to talk about Gold-cloak World Spiritists.

Issei had learn all of that in his second year on the Middle Realm. After training for a while, Shinso had tried to see if he had Spirit Power, but sadly, the test result was negative.

Issei, sadly, wasn't one of that lucky people who were born with Spirit Power. Shinso, on the other hand, was a Blue-cloak World Spiritist, and for him to bulk-made such weapons was extremely easy for him.

In fact, the two hundred swords that Issei had exploded was only a little compared to what he had left in his Cosmos Sack. He had over two thousand of those. The only reason why he had only used two hundred was because Issei had never killed before, and didn't feel like doing it anytime soon.

Anyways, Issei was currently headed towards the Heavenly Might academy in a carriage. By his side was a grim-faced youth.

That was one of the contestants that Issei had battled with before fighting with the youth of of the Azure Lightning School, Zhou Chao. He had learned that after talking with him a little after both were healed.

Although Chao had seemed arrogant before, he was actually a really kind and gentleman-like person. Apparently, his arrogant attitude before was only used to put on airs.

When he had heard that Issei had declined the Azure Lighting School's invitation, he was down-cast, but understood that Issei probably had his own reasons. He also said that if Issei wanted, he would always be welcome in the school.

Either way, the reason why the youth by Issei's side was with such a grim countenance was because not only had he lost to Issei, he had also been played around with the entire match. To be fooled by a ten years old kid that hadn't even reached puberty yet... That was beyond humiliation!

To him, who was almost always treated with utmost respect, that was an offense worthy of death!

During the travel in the carriage, he secretly swore in his heart that he would make sure to pay Issei back once they arrived. After all, although being the weakest core-disciple of the entire school, who was in fact, weaker than some of the strongest inner disciples, his father was a respected elder at the school and he had powerful connections.

More specifically, he was close friends with two of the schools strongest core-disciples. As he thought of that, a cold smirk flashed on his face. Issei's misery was, undoubtedly, his happiness.

After a couple of more hours, they finally arrived at the school. Throughout the entire way, neither of them spoke, both lost in thoughts. Issei thinking about how to become the school's number one core-disciple and the other about his plan of making Issei suffer.

The moment they arrived, the elders went ahead, telling the youth, that Issei just discovered that was named Jiao Lei, to show Issei around.

At that moment, it was as if both of them had switched faces. Issei's excited face became grim and the youth's grim face became excited.

During the entire travel, it was obvious to Issei that Jiao Lei had ill-though towards him, if the evil smile that unknowingly plastered his face and the dark giggles that would occasionally come out during the travel were any indication.

As soon as the elders left, the youth's face sported a malicious smirk as he looked at Issei, the same look a predator would show to its prey.

"Hmm..." Issei begun slowly, trying to calm down the situation, back to his innocent facade, "Senior Brother, could you please lead the way?"

Hearing his words, the dark smirk in the Jiao Lei's mouth grew even wider as he said, "Oh yes, I'll lead the way..." he began, before his face turned sinister, "To hell!"

Immediately, Issei's vision became black as a pressuring Spiritual Power that came from behind him crashed against his, at least in the fifth level of the True Profound realm, making him completely powerless.

Before he could even react, his body was enveloped by a bag and he was knocked unconscious.

Five hours later, Issei finally came to his senses. Although expected, he had never thought that Jiao Lei would make a move against him the moment that the elders left.

"Damn," said Issei, "During the travel here, he must have somehow contacted some of his friends to take care of me."

At that moment, Issei could only blame his foolishness. If he had been more prepared, he wouldn't have been ambushed so easily.

Sighing in his heart, he made a mental reminder to never let his guard down against in his life. From that moment on, Issei would always keep on watch for surprises.

"Well, that only applies if I find my way back," said Issei as he looked around. No signs of the huge Heavenly Might School could be seen.

No matter where he looked, he would only see tall, wide trees with verdant green foliage and lush grass. He was in a forest of sorts, and by the looks of it, quite deep within it.

If that was all, it wouldn't be too much of a problem to search around, but it just so happened that it was night. Furthermore, he could hear the roar of countless beasts in the distance. It seemed like this place was the habitat of some Profound Beasts.

Because of the high-density of Spiritual Power in the air, beasts that possessed stronger, faster, larger and special bodies appeared. Those beasts were called Profound Beasts.

There were all kinds of Profound Beasts, such as giant serpents, dire wolves, huge turtles... there were endless species.

Normally, Profound Beasts would receive the same ranking as cultivators, but it was common knowledge that Profound Beasts would normally be twice to thrice stronger than human cultivators who possessed the same level of cultivation.

Because of that, they were regarded as extremely dangerous.

Hearing the howls of such beasts, Issei couldn't help but to shiver a little.

He had no food left, was standing alone in the middle of a forest full of Profound beasts, it was night, and worst of all, he didn't even have the slightest clue to the way back.

Thankfully, it seemed like Jiao Lei and his friends were kind enough to not steal his Cosmos Sack. Because of that, even if he was attacked by powerful Profound Beasts, he could still defend himself with his remaining one thousand and eight hundred swords with an explosion Spirit Formation.

After looking at his surroundings for a while, Issei didn't even find the slightest trace of tracks that could have been unknowingly left behind by his 'seniors'.

Seeing that there was no use in trying to figure out the logical way out of this situation, Issei decided to move in the only direction that he had ever moved in ever since coming to the Middle Realm – Forward.

Steeling his nerves, Issei walked forward, delving deeper into the forest. Soon after, it began to rain.

Now soaked, lost and hungry, Issei continued moving forward.

At the start, he had only moved forward because of instinct, but after advancing for a couple of minutes, he started to feel a mysterious pull in his mind.

It was as if someone, no, something, was calling out to him. At first, it was faint, but the more he advanced, the clearer it got.

By the time it started raining, the feeling was extremely clear. Issei was sure that there was something in this forest, something mystical and mysterious. Something that was calling out to him!

After two hour of constant walking, the feeling was by now overwhelming all his senses. He could barely hear his own thoughts.

In front of him, a cave could be seen.

Without even a glimpse of hesitation, Issei entered the cave, because he knew that whatever that was calling out to him was in there.

And, after walking a couple more meter into the cave, he finally saw it. It was...