บท 10: Chapter 10: Was it worth it?

Hours passed and the night replaced the day, and it was time for dinner.

Mang Tian, a sixth ranked blacksmith, would be mistaken as someone who doesn't know how to cook, especially with how much time he consumes in his work, but he's human and what does every human needs? Food and water. So he needs to at least knew how to cook basic food to sustain himself.

Putting down two bowls filled with chicken soup and two filled with rice, one of each paired together, they were put on opposite sides of each other of a table, making Mang Tian nod in content.

No matter the time of meal, whether it be breakfast, lunch or dinner, chicken soup is the best meal to eat!

"Xiu Ye! Hey kid, it's dinner time!" Mang Tian called out towards his foster son. Honestly, he wouldn't have adopted the boy if it weren't for Yu Fei. He owed that woman for a favor he asked of her about getting a very expensive and rare metal ore that even he, a sixth ranked blacksmith wasn't able to purchase.

He didn't really care about the background of the woman, as long as she doesn't start problems around, he was okay with dealing with her shady business.

He also really wasn't ready to be a dad but, if it meant repaying that scary woman he would have adopted the entire children in the orphanage if it meant repaying her.

No reply. A few minutes passed and Mang Tian called once more for Xiu Ye but still no reply.

'What is that boy doing?' He thought in worry. He heard from Yu Fei that Xiu Ye is a kid whose always punctual for every meal.

Mang Tian waited for a couple minutes before he decided to go to his son's room.

Walking upstairs, he arrived in front of Xiu Ye's room and knocked on the door gently.

"Xiu Ye? Hey kid, it's time to eat!"

No response.

Now Mang Tian is truly worried.

'He should be absorbing his spirit soul... Normally it would take an hour at most for someone to absorb their spirit soul, it's been like six hours! Shit, something must've gone wrong.' With that thought in mind, Mang Tian banged harder on the door and called out for Xiu Ye's name.

He had let the kid absorb his spirit soul all by himself because there wasn't really known danger of absorbing a spirit soul, though there are accounts of it; it was rare. Now he regretted not staying by the kid's side.

If something horrible happened to Xiu Ye under his watch, he wouldn't forgive himself for it! Worse. That fake nun's going to freak out if she knew about this and she's probably going to kill him for it!

A cold shudder traveled down Mang Tian's spine, and with the last thought of a blood thirsty nun after him in his mind, he became impatient and decided to just kick open the door.

However, before that happened, the door opened up suddenly.

Xiu Ye stood standing in his door step, he was wearing only his shorts and so revealed his impressive toned muscular body. His expression tired but happy though that soon turned into confusion as he sees a foot heading towards his face.

"Ahhh! My face!" With a bang, Xiu Ye was sent flying to his ass on the floor.

"Eh? Kid? You're alright!"

"Alright?! Do you see the blood running down my nose?! Ugh, I feel dizzy..." Xiu Ye fell unconscious on the floor.

"..." Mang Tian's face quickly paled like a blank sheet of paper.

Time passed by half an hour and Xiu Ye woke up on a couch and Mang Tian quickly apologize for his earlier action of kicking him to unconsciousness.

"It's fine. You were just worried about me, and it was mostly my fault for not answering you earlier." Xiu Ye said as he took the chair at the dinning table with Mang Tian simultaneously.

Mang Tian let out a sigh of relief, profusely thanking the heavens that the boy didn't hold a grudge against him. He was guilty of kicking his face but he was more scared of the fact that the kid might tell on his big sister on him.

'Thank god I didn't use soul power to strengthen my kick, or the boy would have something worse than a broken nose.' Speaking of which, Mang Tian took notice that Xiu Ye's nose had stopped bleeding. That was a fast recovery than he expected. He wanted to ask but decided not to, if it was a secret of the boy he didn't want to divulge: then he was fine with it.

Time passes once more and they finished eating dinner.

"Hey, Xiu Ye. Have you finished absorbing that spirit soul of yours?" Mang Tian asked after washing his dishes.

"Yup! Not only did the absorption process go perfectly well, the compatibility between us is perfect as well! Do you wanna see it? Wait a moment, I'll finish this up soon." Xiu Ye said excitedly and washed his part of the dishes.

Soon, after Xiu Ye finished washing his dishes, they walked into the workshop building so that he would show off his spirit soul.

Mang Tian's house was connected behind his workshop, a much bigger building than where he lives, clearly showing that he considers his work more than his personal life.

"Ready?" Mang Tian asked to Xiu Ye, standing in the middle of his one of many workshop's room with his work materials set by the side so to keep any unforseen damages to be made.

"Yeah! Trace, on!" Xiu Ye called out, his right arm stretch out and hand open wide. Suddenly, the temperature around him started to rise. Orange red flames sparked in his opened hand, spreading around and starting to grow simultaneously.

The orange red flames took the shape of a long stick, as if it were a rod of hot fire, before the flames slowly disappeared to show a black sheathed sword.

Mang Tian widened his eyes in surprise, at both the epic release of Xiu Ye's martial soul and the heat it generated. As a experience blacksmith, he was certain that temperature around him had reached about 2,800 celsius! The temperature was enough to melt most hundred refined metal and a person's flesh. Thankfully he used his soul power to protect himself and that the room and it's equipments are highly heat resistant.

'Such intense heat. It's so powerful, even for me, a Soul Ancestor protected with soul power, to still feel its heat. Isn't he just a newly promoted one-ringed Soul Master? To have this much power, there would be no doubt that he would grow up into a very powerful soul master.' Mang Tian didn't notice that his mouth had form a small smile.

'Though, why do I sense such familiarity? Like a deja vu feeling...' He thought in suspicion as he watched Xiu Ye unsheathed his sword spirit, for some odd reason, as he feel the heat of the flame produced from the latter's sword, it was like he had already felt this sort of heat and seen this flame before.

The feeling felt even stronger as he watched as how the flames danced around the sword's blade edge.

Whatever. He shook it off a moment later as he just couldn't remember it and thought of it later on when he could clearly remember about it.

Right now, he let out a whistle at the beautiful pristine blade shining brightly as a orange red flame coated around it.

He might not be a weaponsmith, but he's still a blacksmith, he could already tell that by the blade's composition of unknown metal of the sword that it's very sharp. Sharp enough to easily slice apart hundred refined metals and possibly low grade thousand refined metals.

Suddenly, a bright yellow light appeared underneath Xiu Ye while a familiar but shrunken into hand size hammer seemingly appeared out of nowhere on top of his left shoulder. The yellow light let out a glow as it expanded around him, revealing it to be a hundred year old soul ring.

'This child's future, is going to be great!'

'Remember, I have to teach you later on.' Ryūjin Jakka's calm and old voice resounded in Xiu Ye's mind, causing him to slightly panic with his eyes widening.

Quickly, he calmed himself down before Mang Tian catches his unusual behavior. Though a bitter and irritated smile appeared on his lips.

Earlier ago when he was transported into that world of weapons he fought against one of the most powerful swords he'd ever known, Ryūjin Jakka. There he fought with the old soul with everything that he's got, gaining his spirit soul's soul skill and to the point of unlocking two innate abilities.

Projection and reinforcement.

Projection is variation of something called gradation air, also referred as Tracing due to the unique aria, "Trace On", that is used for its activation. Tracing, not only does it reproduce the shape and substance of an object, but also its entire history as well, with the use of soul power. Objects created with tracing are slightly inferior to the originals due to the fact that only so much information can be gathered by sight alone, and tool soul type martial souls are unknown if they could be traced. Objects do need to be seen directly in order to be traced. Objects seen through shared memories can be properly traced, in theory.

In simple terms, he gained the ability to create anything into existence! Though inferior and uses a lot of soul power.

Reinforcement is the most difficult ability he gained; with the purpose of pushing a basis to the utmost limit. It is to enhance the existence of the target by pouring soul power, but has no clear expression of how much it can be enhanced is defined. It is the same as adding something to an object that is already complete, in case of failure the target will receive it as a poison. Success requires a good grasp of the inner structure to fill openings with soul power. Reinforcing the purpose of existence would be increasing the sharpness of a knife, the nourishment of food, or in the case of a living creature, physical strength and durability. It is impossible to reinforce something vague.

Currently, Xiu Ye could enhance his physical strength and durability by about twice at the least and at upmost thrice but it would only last for a minute before his soul power is entirely exhausted.

During his battle, he traced dozens of swords that can easily slice through steel, reinforced his body thrice, and used his first soul ability to amplify his body and gain control of lightning, with the sole intent of defeating Ryūjin Jakka.

Yet, even with all that, Xiu Ye was brutally beaten and had four of his limbs separated from him.

He thought he died, no, he did die. Thankfully it was merely the consciousness of his mind: a self image copy created by a part of your spirit so to appear in your spiritual sea, which means his physical body didn't get injured but his spiritual power and soul would be affected severely from the mentally scaring experience he had with Ryūjin Jakka.

That was the reason why he had been unconscious for several hours, dealing with PTSD and spiritual injuries. Thankfully he already had some experience of being dead(being killed by Truck-kun), so he was able to deal with his PTSD, probably, but the injuries in his soul would only be healed by several days of rest.

It was also when he woke up was the moment he opened his door room to head out for fresh air, had his foster father's foot on his face.

He had thought that it was all a dream, that world of weapons and meeting Ryūjin Jakka. But that was quickly slapped out of his head when he heard that old man's voice in his head.

At first he had ignored him, after all he was the one who cut him apart like he was some mere paper without any reason. He even thought of tossing the thing out and just fought like Might Guy. Then the old soul started talking about a cultivation method he created after reading his mind about the information of this world.

Rude and scary, but Xiu Ye was very interested. Maybe being chopped up was worth it if this cultivation method Ryūjin Jakka had was good?

But that would be later, for now, he's going to try out his soul skill, Lightning Beast, with Ryūjin Jakka on hand in the real world.