Unsealing Emptiness

She decided that they should learn the basic method until they had more resources. For now, they had to do with what little they had.

“Hey... is this really true?” Zier asked, looking up from the cultivation manual he was reading.

“True what?” Blaze replied while Raven kept her focus on cultivation.

“This right here...” he pointed at the text and showed the book to Blaze.

Only Raven had read the cultivation manual yet and passed it to Zier next.

Just like the other book, this was also written personally by Old Gu. Hence, everything was explained in a way that they best understood.

.....

Even for Blaze, it wasn’t hard to understand.

What Zier had shown him basically gave them insight on how them coming from the Broken World had their own advantages.

“Hm... So first there is Foundation Building Realm which includes Body Nourishing and Bone Cleansing which are further divided into parts. But we don’t have to go through these stages?”

Blaze muttered in understanding. How much he understood and how much he merely repeated would remain a mystery.

Not being able to concentrate, Raven opened her eyes to explain. What they were reading wasn’t even the cultivation method but just the general information.

“People in these Realms are supposed to first nourish their bodies and then strengthen all of their bones one by one. That is called Foundation Building. However, since in our Broken World, we have already strengthened our bodies, we can skip this long and painful phase altogether.”

“Also, it takes them quite a few years to complete the Foundation Building Realm. Some even give up midway because it’s too painful.”

“So we... uh... have completed this Bone Cleansing stage?” Zier asked, not feeling anything special being at this stage.

“I and Blaze have, I don’t know about you. You have to try and gather this Spiritual Essence in your body. If it doesn’t feel painful, that means you should have already completed the Foundation Building as well.”

Raven had read all that information in the little time that they had so she knew a lot more than them. After trying to gather the Spiritual Essence, she knew that they had already passed Foundation Building a long time ago. She couldn’t be sure about Zier since he wasn’t even a proper Mage before coming here.

Zier’s excitement deflated like a balloon and he took back the manual to read the instructions on how to gather the Spiritual Essence in his body.

“What to do after gathering the Spiritual Essence in the body?” Blaze asked curiously to Raven.

He would rather just have her explain everything than read that thick book of endless instructions.

Raven sighed in dejection. She wanted to get strong as soon as possible, but it seemed that she would have to guide these monkeys as well.

“We’re at the peak of the Foundation Building Realm. The next breakthrough is a milestone for everyone in this Realm. It’s called Core Formation which is divided into three stages. But that is for later. First, create the Core. For us, that shouldn’t be such a big problem either since we had created Mana Core before. Still, read the instructions on your own before trying anything reckless.”

After saying her part, Raven didn’t wait for him to ask more questions and started cultivating again.

She had to enter the Core Formation as soon as possible. That guard who had beaten Berk Leonhard was most likely in the Core Formation’s first stage, yet he had completely overpowered him.

That much was enough to show her the difference between someone in the Foundation Building Realm and someone in the Core Formation Realm.

‘If we had retained our original abilities, we would probably be above Core Formation, right?’ Raven tried to guess but she couldn’t be sure since she hadn’t seen a peak Core Formation cultivator fighting yet.

‘It shouldn’t take too long on forming the Core right?’

...

Raven was wrong.

Her expectations were completely overturned.

Although they had it easier on the Foundation Building, the Core Formation stage was made difficult for them.

Every time she tried condensing the Spiritual Essence into a solid Core, she failed. And she failed miserably.

Right now, she was lying on the floor while clutching her stomach painfully.

She had tried multiple times but each time she failed, the concentration of Spiritual Essence would bounce off and hit her internals.

‘No wonder it’s important to first nourish the body and cleanse the bones. Someone who hadn’t completed the Foundation Building could never hope to form the Core,’ she thought while breathing heavily.

Trying to get up, she realized that even sitting in a straight position was painful as of now.

In the end, she had to give up today.

‘I need to gather more Spiritual Essence it seems...’

. . .

While the trio was trying to cultivate, Ozul was being ‘escorted’ to somewhere outside the town.

He let them do whatever they wanted, but he wasn’t exactly being idle all that time.

He was examining each one of these guards and had found some distinction between them and the normal people.

All of them had a spot of concentrated Spiritual Essence a little below their chest.

‘It’s like the Mana Core...’

That being the case, that teenager called ‘Young Master Han’ had the biggest spot of concentration compared to all others.

‘... Well except for that guy,’ he eyed their ‘Commander Lin’.

That guy didn’t have that concentrated spot below his chest.

Instead, his whole body seemed to be more concentrated in Spiritual Essence than that of the teenager named Han!

‘Has he expanded that Core to his whole body?’

Since he hadn’t read the cultivation manuals written by Old Gu yet, he didn’t know that this Commander Lin had surpassed Core Formation and reached the Nascent Soul Realm.

Even though he didn’t know what it was called and how it worked, Ozul wasn’t worried since he knew that beating this Commander Lin wouldn’t be a problem.

‘He might have given me some trouble if he was being careful. As of now, he doesn’t think much of me because of how I acted without resistance.’

Commander Lin continuously got reports from his men and was busy dealing with them, so he had handed the custody of Ozul to others seeing how docile he was.

The Young Master Han had a horse while the rest of them were traveling by foot. They were surrounded by woods and it was almost midnight.

Usually, Ozul would have been sleeping at this time, but right now he had to slowly walk towards who knows where. Bored out of his wits, he couldn’t help but question one of the men ordered to keep watch on him,

“Hey... where are we going?”

Being questioned by the man suspected to be behind the assassination attempt on their Young Master didn’t sit well with the guards.

They snorted and looked away. No one wanted to answer him.

However, they were taken aback when they heard a familiar voice answering that man,

“We are going to the neighboring city. More specifically, to my home,” The teenager Han answered.

“City? Which city?”

“The Howling City... don’t tell me you don’t know what the Howling City is?” the teenager looked stupefied upon noticing the blank expressions on Ozul’s face.

‘It’s better not to reveal that I’m from a Broken World...’

“Hm...” he just hummed in response and acted mysterious, leaving it up to other’s imagination whether he denied or agreed.

“Where did you come from?”

Ozul hadn’t even expected for that ‘Young Master’ to answer him, much less start questioning instead.

“I don’t know...”

The teenager Han squinted his eyes, not believing that he had so conveniently forgotten where he had come from.

“Your attire is... unique,” Han commented, “some secret assassination organization perhaps?”

“Hm...”

The only response he got back was a humming voice. Again it wasn’t clear whether he agreed or denied the speculations.

The journey went on for a few hours with the teenager constantly asking him questions and Ozul evading them all by simply humming in reply.

It was at one point that he had enough and couldn’t help but sigh tiredly, “How long till we get there? I want to sleep already...”

He was becoming irritated with these individuals. He didn’t have a horse, and he had to endure the conversation of that boy who kept probing him endlessly.

If this kept on, he wasn’t sure if he could endure it any longer. At that time, he would have to kill all these people if they forced him to.

‘But that would really be troublesome. Wasn’t this area also called Howling Province or something? This teenager should be from a well-known family here. Also, a simple guard leader is almost reaching my speed. There would probably be more people at that level of strength, or maybe even more stronger...’

He didn’t really want to make enemies this early, but if they gave him no other choice, he wouldn’t hesitate a single moment to slash all of their heads off.

Fortunately for these guys, the woods ended and another city came to view only a few minutes later.

The city had walls stretching all across it with gates allowing entrance at some places.

.....

Once they reached a gate, the guards quickly became alert.

One of the men guarding Ozul took out some medal and threw it towards one of the guards who looked as if blood was drained from his face.

“Quickly! Let the members of the Han family in!”