“Purr...”

“Alright... buddy I'm awake! your tongue is prickly... ouch,” Lin protected his face from Sun's barbed tongue and grumbled weakly while opening his eyes and noticed that first light of dawn isn't that far from breaking last night's thick curtains of deep darkness. “I feel like I'm so hungry, so hungry that I can eat a horse right now...” While leaning on his tamed-beast the boy got up on a pair of shaky legs and muttered faintly while massaging his empty stomach with one of his hands.

“Purr...” The red-tiger nodded and let its long tongue hang out of its big jaw to demonstrate that it’s feeling the same. Especially since the great-sage doesn’t know that he spent a few days in a coma after he was struck with the fusion of time-energy and sword-intent from the saintess which his buddy had to guard him very closely and by doing so Sun already missed a few meals while maintaining this form which requires an exaggerated amount of energy to be exhausted. “You too huh!... sorry buddy, I’ll be needing your help because I'm not feeling well right now so... endure it and keep this form until I’m alright.” Lin noticed that the muscle-mass on the red-tiger has shrunk by a layer or two and patted it then retrieved a few dozen large slaps of precooked meat from his space-ring. But doing so almost exhausted the boy into falling unconscious once again! the great-sage squatted-down towards the ground and held his head then waited for a whole minute until the hammers of pain which kept hitting his brain which felt like it’s placed on-top of an "anvil" to fade away slightly before Lin brought out the rest of his and Sun’s meal. For the first time in a long time the boy wasn't spreading his soul-sense or to be exact... he couldn't. His soul never felt weak and exhausted of soul-force like it feels in this moment and to his dismay... the great-sage discovered that his pair of wings are unresponsive and he couldn't activate them no matter how many times he tried. “Whine...” Sun didn't touch the food which Lin took out from his space-ring and the red-tiger cradled its best-friend and kept snuggling with him in a pure and natural animalistic scene which is unbefitting its scary look! Sun did his best to uplift his buddy's down-casted mental-state and cheer-up the boy a little. “We need to eat before the food gets cold buddy... and we need to be strong Sun, so strong to the degree of being capable of protecting ourselves under any circumstances.” Lin extended his hand to tear a piece of meat from the nearby plate and after taking a bite the boy told his tamed-beast while chewing his food then forced the rest of the meat in his hand into the mouth of the red-tiger. “Purr...” while gulping the meat in its mouth... the red-tiger extended its neck to bite a big chunk of meat from the plate because its best-friend is finally saying some good things. “That's right!... that’s the spirit buddy. Mia wronged me, but I can't be passive anymore, next time we meet she’s going to see me as an equal in strength. At least...” Lin spoke while he ate and Sun snared and exposed his fangs slightly when the name of that annoying-woman was mentioned. “Howl!...” After snorting and looking away seemingly about to puke his food after hearing the name Mia again! the red-tiger twisted its neck and gave the boy a side-glance which is full of blame and seemed to be saying : 'You brought us this trouble upon yourself. Buddy!... she bit the hand which helped her, then just ran away like the bitch which she is. So believe it or not... next time I see her, I’ll brutally crunch her bones between my fangs in the most savage way possible.'

The great-sage didn't defend the saintess but deep in his black eyes there’s a place which became flooded with waves and waves of sadness. Looking down at his trousers which still miss a piece of its fabric in the groin area... Lin wished that whatever transpired yesterday was nothing but a sad nightmare. However it’s true and the facts couldn't be denied because Mia personally castrated him! the events which happened suddenly are still confusing and unexpected to the boy who categorized the young-woman as an airhead before. But she isn't vengeful and malicious or wicked... the saintess is playful and childish yes but her caring-personality felt genuine and authentic through the few days which they spent together and the great-sage isn’t such a foolish person who lacks the means to judge a character. Lin's only consolation in this situation is the functionality of his penis after it got severed which means that Mia’s action of cutting his male-organ wasn't intended to harm the boy but to teach him some harsh lesson instead because the young-woman could take both of the great-sage and Sun's lives instantly if she wanted. The explanation which Lin could interpret from the situation is that Mia might’ve suffered from some kind of "emotion-blackout" because her eyes were full of loss and confusion afterwards and the boy saw the guilt and grief clearly inside them which made the young-woman’s gaze towards him hurt! because the great-sage felt her pain and loss when he looked at the saintess’s green eyes. Lin's heart was tearing apart inside his chest when he looked back at Mia that time not because of what she just did... but because he felt her emotional suffering very clearly. After all reattaching a leg or an arm isn't that hard at all for someone like the boy and the young-woman just left like that while being clearly burdened with guilt and sorrow... right now god knows what kind of emotional-state the saintess is experiencing. “Sigh...” The great-sage just sighed and ate to chase away these negative emotions from his chest. But Lin was entirely unaware of his current intake of food while being watched by Sun who felt fear! the red-tiger was extremely shocked by its best-friend which suddenly is behaving like a glutton. Sun only got the chance to eat three chunks of meat before the boy wiped the plates of meat clean. Not to mention the bowls of thick porridge, soup, and the plates of various vegetables and fruits or the side-dishes. “Eh!...” The great-sage looked around at the clean plates and bowls then upwards towards Sun who gave him an amazed and slightly timid look once Lin finally woke-up from his daydreams. The boy felt his stomach with a hand which demanded more nutrition still and said : “I ate that much and my hunger isn't sated yet!” But what the great-sage said made the fur of the red-tiger stand on end and it took a step away from him and lowered its ears before whining : “Snort...” Clearly Sun was annoyed that his buddy ate his food. “Sorry!... let me bring the rest of our meal,” Lin scratched his head apologetically and resisted the next wave of headache just to take out all of the remaining food in his space-ring. “Huff... here buddy, eat up.” Then the boy and the red-tiger wolfed everything like ghouls. “Aaah... that was so good! I'm stuffed to the bursting-point, really stuffed... huff... look buddy. My tummy... it’s so bloated... huff... and rounded, it looks like a... huff... rubber ball, I feel like... just breathing is difficult... huff,” The great-sage fell on his back because he couldn’t keep himself sitting properly and muttered with difficulty. “Purr...” next to him Sun leaned on his side and was feeling the same. “Hehe... you too huh! yours has fur while mine is just skin and smooth to the touch.” The red-tiger felt its belly with a paw then flipped itself on its back “Howl…” and gave an answer. “Yup!... yours is indeed very comfortable to the touch, now... let me rest on it for a while... huff... to digest all that food. Just how could I eat that much exactly?...” Lin struggled to crawl back towards his buddy then climbed his way up and sprayed his body on Sun's belly and murmured the last question to himself but it took seconds for the boy to drown in sleep after burping loudly.

In his dream the great-sage was floating above the ground without wings and everywhere around him there’s white, yellow, gold, and dark-gold dots of light which kept orbiting his body! below him Sun was crouching and seemed to be sleeping while resting his head on both of his front paws while red dots of light were racing towards the red-tiger’s head and once they entered its body whenever it breathed-in these red dots will be instantly attracted towards its demonic-core. Inside Sun’s brain these red-dots orbited that red demonic-core and some of them would be fused together before getting sucked towards that demonic-core while the rest would seep-into the red-tiger’s body and reach its muscles and bones while some of the minority would fuse with its internal-organs.

The boy watched this process within his tamed-beast’s body for a while before turning his attention back towards the dots around his floating-body which seemed to be feeling shy of doing the same with him! 'Come here.' once Lin willed it for these dots to come closer with his thoughts he saw the white and yellow dots of light obey and fly towards his body before getting stuck to his skin in layers just like metal-powder would after being affected by a strong magnet. The gold dots seemed to be curiously watching what happens to the white and yellow dots after stopping one meter away from his body while the dark-gold dots were the only ones to stay on their previous orbit-trajectory and remain unaffected by the calling of the great-sage. 'Didn’t you hear me saying come here? don’t be naughty... I won’t hurt you guys, I just want to take a closer look.' Lin thought and beckoned with his hand for these dark-gold and gold dots. But this time the boy’s pair of wings were activated when he tried calling these dots to come closer and he noticed the difference in his wings at once! there on the right wing there’s a feather at the far end of the upper-section and that feather is unlike the rest of the yellow feathers on this right wing. Most of these feathers are completely yellow or yellow and lined with a golden color at their edges but that feather is completely gold in color while there’s a dark-gold symbol of a pair of spread wings. The left wing has a similarly different feather of the golden color but the symbol on it is silver in color instead of dark-gold in color! It’s the infinity symbol on the left wing while on the right wing there’s the symbol of a pair of spread wings. The glowing dots of the white and yellow colors didn't waste a second after sticking to Lin's body after his first call and once the pair of wings appeared these dots raced against each other until they perched on the feathers of Lin's wings just like a swarm of birds on the branches of a giant tree. Even the gold dots which previously choose to remain away from the boy and keep their distance of a one meter away... didn't hesitate to do the same like the white and yellow dots! meanwhile the dark-gold dots abandoned their previous trajectory and willingly shrunk their distance to one meter and took the great-sage as their center-point then they just peacefully circled around him. The symbol of the spread wings on the right-wing was flickering on and off with a faint and weak dark-gold glow in the beginning then gradually its glow strengthened in brightness. But it seemed to be consuming these white and yellow dots of light ravenously to do so... just like how Lin ate his previous meal.

Once it was saturated with its consumption of the white and yellow dots the dark-gold symbol of the spread wings buzzed once and the dark-gold dots around the boy’s floating body seemed to answer this call when they fell towards it and pushed away the white, yellow, and gold dots who covered the golden-feather which has the symbol to occupy their place. The gold dots hurried to return to occupy the remaining spots on the golden-feather which the dark-gold dots left exposed because there’s no more dark-gold dots left in the surroundings of the great-sage. Following that the remaining gold, yellow, and white dots found themselves left with no choice but to perch on the yellow-feathers instead of the golden-feather on the right-wing. The golden-feather which has the infinity symbol was a lot more peaceful on the left-wing because no yellow and golden dots or those of dark-gold color covered it whatsoever and only some of the white colored dots choose it to be their resting place. Lin kept spectating this strange game between the different colored dots since he has nothing to do in this strange dream because the boy was actually thinking about old Jin Bao and the last words which the great-sage heard from the trapped-cultivator when he was inside the strange world of light and accompanied by that unknown-entity which he met in that world twice.

'Old Jin once said that part of his soul was trapped inside the ring and he couldn't get that part out and even if he could do that later afterwards... the man wouldn't try it ever because this ring helped in keeping what remained of his primordial-soul barely alive after all! but how was he able to help me under these circumstances? if he wanted to give aid to me then it must’ve been done after having to go through the ring itself. I really have to look inside for myself, but last time when I tried to send my soul-force inside the ring Jin Bao warned me against it, he was afraid that I might suffer a fate similar to his. The only safe method which I can think of right now is that I need to reach the next realm in my soul-cultivation, I can go check on old Jin when it happens.' Lin thought about the worrying matter of Jin Bao's disappearance then made up his mind to push harder than before for the next major breakthrough in soul-cultivation. His current main priority is to reach the realm of soul-clone and confirm whether old Jin Bao is gone for good or not... even if doing so means to have some part of his soul be forever trapped inside that mysterious ring and suffer the same fate like old Jin in return. That’s the least the boy can do to honor the memory of the person who introduced him to the world of cultivation! and if old Jin Bao turned-out to be gone forever then the great-sage is prepared to go and find the person which is called Yi Shirong before delivering him the retribution personally on-behalf of Jin Bao who seemed to wish for it to happen with all his heart. As for Mia... Lin didn't want to dwell on the topic with his thoughts for now even in his dreams because her time will come and she too needs to be taught a severe-lesson after what she did. After all getting blinded by any emotion under whatever reason just doesn't wipe away the committed sin or give the offender any sort of excuse! it’s the fault of whomever gets blinded by their emotions in the first place. Being weak to the degree of being driven by their emotions is wrong and socially-unhealthy. Every time it happens the offender has to be handed emotionless justice without any exceptions. While he drifted away with his thoughts from the actions of the glowing dots which covered his body and wings Lin started to zoom-out from this strange dream until he opened his eyes only to find the glaring sun of noon scalding the skin of his face.

“It's noon already... and this sun feels even more ruthless during noon in summer days outside the land of forgetfulness,” The boy covered his eyes from the sun with a hand and muttered. “Sun... wake-up lazy bum!” the great-sage got up groggily after struggling slightly to escape the embrace of the red-tiger which seemed to enjoy this high-degree of temperature pretty much and pulled it by the ear to wake up.

“Grrrr...” Sun opened his eye a slight crack then exposed his fangs which gave a clear message : 'Not yet buddy... let me sleep some more.'

“Take me down to the shore buddy.” Lin ignored Sun’s complaints and began straddling his neck while saying these words.

“Growl...” This time the red-tiger flipped on its belly and rested its head on one of its limbs and growled which meant : 'Why?... I’m not moving unless you give me a good reason to stop this comfortable nap and go waste my energy on something else, and it better be a damn good reason too.'

“It's about time I get my first soak in the saltwater of the ocean,” The boy muttered and thought : 'Now that I remember... I never experienced that feeling personally in my previous life, despite how close the beach was to my Sun-Moon laboratory I never went once be that by myself or with my staff, it really feels sad now that I think about these days where I buried myself in work and research.' Then the great-sage shook his head and looked down towards this tamed-beast of which is clearly uninterested and continued to say : “By the way you... never ate a fish before! right?” Lin pointed down towards the island shore and encouraged the drowsy tiger with a new cuisine which Sun never tasted before.

“Purr?...” Sun raised his head from his paws and looked with these yellow eyes towards the boy which clearly seemed sickly, weakened, and exhausted. The red-tiger meant to ask : 'What’s that fish?... is it tastier than meat?'

“Yes it’s... fish lives in the water and they’re big and small, some of them can grow bigger than anything which you’ve seen before.” The great-sage said and his tamed-beast seemed surprised because it remembered the frightening ones which live north of the village.

“Howl!...” Sun shivered slightly and howled which meant : 'Buddy are you mad? I won’t let you go play in the water if there’s such strong ones living in it... you’re still weak and you should recover instead.'

“Heh... the big and strong ones live in deep water while the small and weak ones live in shallow water, I can enjoy my time in the shallow water while you catch some small fish for us to have for dinner. Go on! if one of the big fellows target us you carry me and escape.” Lin patted Sun and told him to move. Since the boy's soul-sense is inaccessible and his senses still can't be spread further than the boundaries of his skin except for his sense of hearing! while his pair of wings adamantly refuse to activate. Add to these inconveniences the feeling of extreme hunger which he’s feeling currently despite eating an exaggerated meal just a few hours earlier. The great-sage is aware that they need to direct their nutrition intake towards the ocean because their food supply ran-out after their last meal anyway. That’s why their eyes has to point towards this expansive body of water and make it their new source of food otherwise he and Sun will starve in the near-future. Because unless Lin assimilated his martial-spirit the advanced-space talisman is going to remain just a piece of rolled leather inside his space-ring and completely useless! however the boy wasn't overly concerned with the absence of his soul-force and spirit-energy just yet. Simply because his space-ring is still accessible somehow and that’s powered ultimately by spirit-energy in some way. Which means that him currently suffering because his spirit-wings are shying away doesn't mean that they're gone for good. That's how the great-sage comforted himself by thinking that something must've gone wrong when Mia made him lapse into unconsciousness when the fusion of both her time-sword energies hit him from point-blank while he wasn’t expected.

Unbeknownst to Lin... the residual time-energy from Mia's martial-spirit was currently stuck to the place where his penis once was! That energy caused some sort of interference to the natural flow of his spirit-energy within his body which anyone passively experience after awakening their martial-spirits. But because this is the first time the boy is actually experiencing being exposed to environmental-elements he couldn’t tell the difference. Meanwhile the space-ring is bound to the great-sage’s primordial-source of spirit-energy directly because the connection was made under the suppression of chaos-energy which naturally suppresses any elemental-energy of low-rank or low-purity! that's why Lin could use his space-ring right now despite these circumstances albeit with some difficulty. His martial-spirit on the other hand is being forcefully separated from his control by the effect of the residue energy of the element of time which is of a superior-rank and higher purity if compared to the miniscule amount of light-energy within the boy’s body.

After descending to the rocky cliff... Lin and Sun soaked in the ocean water and had fun all the way until it was already dusk. The big tiger made a few cannonball dives after climbing a few dozen feet on the rocky cliff! only to end up with empty claws and saltwater rinsing its mouth and cleaning its big fangs. Trying to outsmart these fishes Sun shrunk himself into a kitten and tried to surprise these fishes by enlarging and transforming his body suddenly! only to find them scurrying away faster than he expected and he failed once again. The red-tiger ended up burning more energy after these attempts because its shape-shifting ability has its toll on Sun’s demonic-energy expenditure after all. Every transformation requires the red-tiger to resupply its energy-tank with nutrition or its hunger-bangs wouldn't decrease but increase instead. Still Sun seemed to be having fun for a change and Lin let his buddy do whatever he wanted because lately the red-tiger was in a bad mood because of Mia almost all the time. The boy had to make a few makeshift and primitive fish traps in the end after the red-tiger failed to catch these slippery bastards and the material’s he used were the empty wooden-boxes which he retrieved from his space-ring and left them in a shallow corner between the cliff-rocks on the shore and surrounded their path with a stack of rocks in a simple maze. Slightly before dusk Lin got out of the water and climbed a rock which is slightly protruding from the cliff-wall and located above the level of the crashing waves... there he sat and silently looked at the burning horizon towards the west while it faded gradually into darkness. Afterwards the boy rested his back on the hard and wet surface of the rock-wall behind him and closed his eyes! the great-sage aimed to communicate with the surrounding strands of spirit-energy in the environment. But this time Lin had no soul-sense spread to supplement this attempt. Unlike yesterday when Mia had her breakthrough and the boy could access his soul-view... this time the great-sage felt like he’s a blind person who’s feeling his way within a foreign location.

“Uh!... maybe the basic spirit-gathering formation could help fix this problem,” Lin suddenly stood-up and muttered faintly, “Sun... take me back up buddy, it’s about time I give that formation a try.” After calling for Sun to stop playing in the water the boy latched-on to the tiger’s red fur and it jumped left and right in its quick ascent.

“Guard me buddy.” The great-sage slid-down on the soft fur and walked into the center of the formation which Mia drew on the rocky ground then after checking the five spirit-crystals in each node he sat in the center cross-legged and told Sun to take the watch until this trial is over with.

“Purr...” The red-tiger nudged the boy with its snout and made a cute sound which Lin understood the intention to be : 'Buddy... can I go back to hunt some of these slippery creatures?'

“En... yes you can go and keep playing in the ocean water later, but you must be careful and never let any strong creature sneak-up on you! you’ll be safe in the shore where there’s land below your paws but deep into the ocean you wouldn’t be able to give it your best in a fight.” The great-sage scratched the cheeks of his tamed-beast with his fingers and warned seriously.

“Purr...” Sun carefully licked the palms of his buddy and nodded.

“You’re such a good boy... Sunny!” Lin smirked and said that which made Sun squint in pleasure despite being called a name which always frustrated him whenever Mia called him with it before.

During this night the only source of light besides the moonlight and the twinkling glow of the countless stars in the clear sky would be the five spirit-crystals in the formation nodes! each spirit-crystal has no color and was transparent yet gave away a silver or off-white shine in a small diameter around their nodes. Once the boy closed his eyes and began to delve deeper into the feeling of meditation after calming his breathing he found himself being enveloped in a strange sense of being squeezed and pressed by a heavy and squishy warmth. Still this slight squeezing-pressure which he felt after entering the spirit-gathering formation kept accumulating and increasing in power gradually until his skeleton started groaning under this force of pressure after Lin spent just a minute within it! yet his soul-sense remained being imprisoned somewhere inside his soul-world and his third eye the soul-eye remain closed shut and sealed. His physical-body keeps demanding for more nutrition urgently while his martial-spirit doesn’t respond to his summons and wouldn’t activate at all. 'Assimilating my martial-spirit into the dantian. According to what I knew before from the soul-strengthening technique which old Jin gave me and Mia... I need to direct my spirit-wings towards the area below the stomach, from that location I need to coat my martial-spirit with compatible spirit-energy then pierce that acupoint inwards to open the dantian! the better the quality of the spirit-energy which is coating my martial-spirit... the firmer the foundation I’ll have in the spirit-apprentice realm... which in-turn means an easier transition towards the next major-realm when I reach the peak of the current realm. This analogy is constant and advised to be followed in each following realm.' Lin thought while trying to imagine covering his pair of wings with the white, yellow, gold, and even the dark-gold dots which are in fact the strands of light-energy in different purity. The image he conjured in his head is exactly the same like the one which he witnessed in his dream before noon! and at once the boy noticed that the pressure which he felt earlier was gone. The bones of the great-sage popped and creaked in loud sounds and voices which seemed like his skeleton was sighing in relief after the disappearance of the stifling-pressure. 'I guess this means that I'm on the right track somehow. Sigh... if only my soul-sense was working, I would've been able to see the grade of the light-energy which is coating my martial-spirit, whatever... one step at a time I guess.' Lin thought because he didn't know the specific details of this ongoing-operation which should be handled delicately. But he didn't have an alternative choice anyway that’s why he didn’t let these thoughts and worries influence his concentration at all. Lin can brag about his imaginative-mind to the best of the best in this world! in that aspect of his capabilities the boy is confident that besides his twin-sister Lily... he’s "unequaled" in that special trait within the spirit-world. The great-sage was entirely relying on his imagination to complete the assimilation of his martial-spirit. The first step Lin has to do is to direct and guide the glowing dots of the light-energy to cover his pair of wings! the boy focused on arranging the four different colors of light-energy in the correct and final order before allowing them to coat his spirit-wings in his imagination, Second step is the harder part of this operation because the great-sage would be moving his spirit-wings which are coated in countless dots of light-energy downwards toward the area of the acupoint which leads to the dantian. 'Ugh!... something is stopping me from sending these wings inside my dantian, this feels just like... the defense of the invisible-walls around Mia’s space-ring! when did she place them on me? was it after I became unconscious? or was it...' Lin felt slight pain when he tried to complete the second step of his plans and began thinking of reasons for this unexpected hurdle. However soon after he decided to add a third step to his operation which is... to bypass the blockade of the invisible-walls which stopped the strands of light-energy and his martial-spirit from entering his dantian. Actually all these steps could be summarized in a single sentence which is "crossing the mundane" it’s called likewise in the information within the soul-strengthening technique. After calming down and rearranging the dots of light-energy in a tight coat of colorful energy around the pair of wings the boy imagined having his spirit-wings pushing deeper and much stronger at his dantian.

“Bfff!... cough... cough...” The great-sage felt his innards being squeezed tightly then pushed upwards towards his throat! as if someone just delivered an uppercut to his intestines and stomach with so much power to the degree of forcing him to spitting a mouthful of blood. Sun was scared shitless when he saw this happen to his buddy up-close and he began looking everywhere around them for the asshole who attacked Lin earlier after quickly moving to stand above the boy to protect him. The red-tiger just saw its best-friend spit blood suddenly out of the blue and thought : 'Someone did something to buddy!... is that bitch back? does she want to hurt Lin again?' Lin wiped the blood from his lips in his sleeve then said : “Buddy... I'm alright,” but when the boy told Sun to calm he found him not believing any of it and crouching lower to protect him below his stomach! “So stuffy!... huff... can’t you see that nobody is here besides the two us? leave the formation already... I need to concentrate, you’ll distract me.” The great-sage told his tamed-beast and only after double checking again with its yellow eyes for anyone or anything nearby around them “Murr...” Finally Sun left the formation after some hesitation. 'Was that previous attempt a failure as well? but how many times will it take for me until I succeed with the spirit-assimilation? not to mention how painful it felt,' Lin massaged his stomach with his hands while thinking about that troubling thought, ' Whatever!... sooner or later I’ll have to take that step anyway, so no need for me to even think about delaying this task to later, or to even try and come-up with methods to avoid these jolts of intense pain. That way I’ll remember the hardships which I went through because I was weak... and not only did I let myself be harmed but also failed a second time when one of my friends sacrificed himself in-exchange for my safety.' After steadying his breathing and reinforcing his conviction with these thoughts the boy closed his eyes... again the great-sage imagined his pair of wings getting coated in the four different colors of glowing dots of light-energy strands before pushing deep towards the acupoint which leads towards his dantian! since this time he’s prepared for the excruciating and deep physical-pain... Lin’s suffering was indeed a lot less than before in the second serious attempt. But still his face reddened like a tomato after he stifled a groan from escaping his lips. 'Again.' after giving himself a short moment to catch his breath and reorganize the dots of energy which would scatter in his imagination after the thick dosage of pain which washes over his body after every attempt. Lin gritted his teeth and willed his imagination to pierce the acupoint on top of his dantian with his martial-spirit which is coated with light-energy while bracing for impact with all his mental-concentration. Again and again and some more he repeated the process. The boy tried eight times to seriously unlock that acupoint to no avail and his only gain from these attempt was pain... time and again! after the eighth try the great-sage was already dancing on the last and faintest of strands of lucidity but clearly he’s wobbling unstably like a heavily-intoxicated drunk on uneven-ground towards complete-unconsciousness with each difficult-breath he drew into his chest. 'I refuse to believe... that I can't cultivate spirit-energy!' while veering into the darkness of total-unconsciousness... Lin’s subconscious-mind willed his martial-spirit towards the acupoint on-top of the location of the dantian one last time.

“Om!... whoosh...”

“Whine!...”

Last thing Lin got to hear before completely slipping into the folds of unconsciousness and right before its thick curtains blocked the final crack of light from his awareness was a sudden sound which is felt deafening yet somewhat stifled! then what followed it was the calmer sound of the wind sweeping this island and Sun’s voice when he whined faintly. If the boy had been awake right now to see the sight which his red-tiger got to see after blinking the sand from its eyes then he would’ve certainly began to quickly take and make countless mental-notes about the different dots of blinding light which kept entering his body through the area of his dantian and through his mouth with each breath he took! or about the change which his skin is experiencing... or the color of his pupils which changed into the bright color of polished-gold from their original color of obsidian black. All of these changes were mainly on the exterior-level and could be easily seen and noticed by the eyes of any spirit-cultivator while on the interior-level the body of the great-sage was being washed extensively by the energy from the light-element which kept accumulating within his physique. As for his martial-spirit... Lin’s pair of wings they took the central point of the dantian’s space once they entered this new environment along-with their accompanying coat of light-energy. Then that coat of light-energy was scattered away by the pair of wings after a simple flutter and sent outwardly to heal the boy's wounds which he accumulated after the nine tries of forcefully crossing the mundane! meanwhile the martial-spirit itself too advantage of the existence of the basic spirit-gathering formation to collect each and every strand of the light-element in the surrounding radius of fifty meters. But these greedy pair of wings didn’t become satisfied afterwards... somehow they began to passively convert the transparent-energy of the time-element from the five spirit-crystals within the nodes of the formation into light-energy before gobbling them up all the same. Sun just crouched nearby his buddy and vigilantly guarded the boy in his sleep but even if the great-sage woke up and told the red-tiger to go away and play like it requested earlier then he would be surprised to find his tamed-beast refusing to budge from its position and wouldn't move an inch even if it meant missing one hell of a meal! because Sun found dozens of answers to many of his previous confusions which he accumulated and collected ever since he ate the mammoth's demonic-core. Just by sitting next to Lin right now the red-tiger’s inherited-memories which are buried deep within its bloodline began to unravel and become very simple to understand. Since it’s a beast this tamed-beast of the boy is already taking long and wide strides in its path of advancement! while the great-sage has to accumulate more spirit-energy or refine his accumulation of light-energy to bypass the sub-realms of the spirit-apprentice realm then the first major-realm which is the first bottleneck before the spirit-disciple realm... Sun only needs to unlock the inherited-memories which already exist within his bloodline to pass the demonic-beast realm and ascend to the devil-beast realm. Each time Sun unlocks some part of his inherited-memories he'll naturally gain in intelligence and passively learn more skills and techniques from his predecessors. As for communicating with the elements... the great majority of beasts never meet any hurdle or difficulty in that matter. Simply because their demonic-cores can work like a spirit-gathering formation if needed and the higher they advance in their beast-dao the better and finer their passive control on the elements become! not to mention the other superiority beasts naturally have over other cultivator when it comes to the strength of the physique. That's why beasts are called the favorites of the spirit-world by most jealous cultivators.

Night was spent calmly where the boy slept on top of the forlimbs of his buddy. Lin's spirit-wings were finally sated one hour later after he lost consciousness and no further accumulation of the light-element from the surrounding environment or any more conversion of the time-element from the five spirit-crystals. The active-function of the basic spirit-gathering formation was deactivated and the passive-function of slowly accumulating the surrounding elements was the only option left at work. The formation-lines dimmed-out while the formation nodes would seem wider because the five spirit-crystals within them lost a few layers in size. Sun crouched with a much smarter glow which twinkled in his yellow eyes meanwhile the great-sage's martial-spirit was internally distributing this over-flooding amount of light-energy to every cell! beginning with the outermost-layer of skin on the boy’s body then sinking deeper towards the muscles. Lin woke-up and found that none of the previous exhaustion remained which startled him because such quick recovery can only happen in his previous life if an advanced "healing-pod" was provided... but the great-sage suspected that even a healing-pod couldn’t help his condition. The boy instantly noticed that the formation underneath him sent streams of spirit-energy towards his and the red-tiger’s body from the five nodes of the five-pointed star. Through the formation-lines that accumulated spirit-energy travelled just like how veins and arteries would transmit the blood which is rich with oxygen and nutrition towards the different parts of the body. From outside the circle of the formation a swirl of spirit-energy made-up from countless strands of different elements began funneling inwards towards him and Sun! the great-sage immediately noticed that most of these elements seemed to be eagerly waiting to be taken in and converted to the light-energy just like a gathering of beggars pleading in front of a wealthy person’s mansion and hoping for a meal or the comfort of being under his service... if they’re lucky. The red-tiger gave its buddy a cursory-look to check if the boy is alright first before nodding and closing its eyes to take a nap... but there’s another meaning hidden within that final glance which the great-sage translated : 'Buddy... I’m hungry so I’ll be expecting food when I wake up! those slippery bastards from before made me burn lots of energy,' But what Lin didn’t know was that Sun already recovered almost thirty-percent of the energy which his demonic-core can store just by being the boy’s pillow! standing up and yawning lazily while stretching his spine backwards which formed almost a perfect bridge and revealed how flexible the muscles and how bendy the joints on the skeleton of the great-sage is. Lin was shocked by how vastly different his physical-condition and current state of body is if compared to just yesterday. True power was coursing through his veins like thick layers of molten lava which wouldn’t stop oozing and bursting-out from the summit of an active-volcano.

“This feeling is amazing!... so that's how spirit-cultivators feel after they assimilate their martial-spirits and step into the realm of spirit-apprentice,” Lin squeezed a fist and looked downwards at his right hand feeling wondrously astonished by this new type of strength, “I can feel the connection with my wings being strongly linked like never before and the same goes for the light-element which is everywhere around me,” After looking up towards the sky Lin could feel each and every strand of light-energy in the domain which is covered by the basic spirit-gathering formation, “Whoa!... are these really my wings?” Once Lin willed his martial-spirit to appear once again to confirm that they function normally he was stunned by the huge difference in his pair of wings which were previously of a span of just a mere three meters from end to end... but now his spirit-wings are more than double the previous span! they’re almost reaching seven meters in width while each and every one of their feathers has more and more of the gold color on them instead of the yellow color which previously was in the majority. “Hmmm... that’s exactly the same symbol which is on the dark-gold feather of the right-wing! does that have some sort of a meaning?” Lin looked at the back of his right-hand which has the dark-gold tattoo that appeared on his skin once the pair of wings revealed themselves at the area of his shoulder-blades. “The left-hand has nothing at all! this symbol on the right-hand is similar to the one on this feather so... is there one similar to the symbol on the left-wing somewhere else on my body?” The boy began looking everywhere but he found no symbol of infinity anywhere on his body, “Maybe that’s just how my martial-spirit is!” Lin scratched his cheek in befuddlement but he felt like there's a purpose for the appearance of these symbols on these two feathers specifically... but they’re still hidden for some reason. The great-sage began walking like he's used to do whenever he's thinking about something which is "amusingly" confusing and like so Lin just let his mind loose and replayed the events one by one in his head while trying to link the clues which he has to figure-out this puzzle.

But if only could the boy use his inner-sight to look at his soul-body right now... then he would've seen the silver symbol of infinity on the back of the left-hand of his soul-body! flickering in a silver glow while the infinity symbol itself swallowed like a blue-whale on the thick clouds of the silver color which are surrounding the great-sage’s soul-body. Meanwhile each time that phenomenon happened within the soul-world Lin’s soul-force would increase greatly in quantity... and soon after just before the phenomenon is repeated once again the total amount of soul-force within the soul-body would shrink back to the previous amount. However... the quality in soul-force would be vastly different if compared to the soul-force from a bit earlier! and the process went on and on with no apparent end.

“Trrrk... clack... hmmm,” Lin's shoes hit something during his circular walk and the sound grabbed his attention. It turned-out to be just the piece of broken white-jade which contain the incomplete-manual of the prime-light technique for spirit-cultivation which was left to gather dust on the ground ever since Lin got blasted with Mia's energy fusion of sword-intent and time-energy, “What I do from here on is to follow the teachings within this jade,” After bending-down to grab the only manual he has for spirit-cultivation when it comes to the light-element the boy willed the surrounding strands of light-energy which willingly moved according to his intentions to enter inside the broken white-jade so that he can take a look for himself on the teachings of a spirit-cultivation technique. Previously the great-sage could access any of the spirit-jades he found in Weisheng's space-ring with his soul-sense if he wanted but Jin Bao discouraged him against doing so because the information would distract Lin and nothing much would be gained from it! now the boy can’t use the ability of soul-sense under these circumstances but now that he successfully managed to assimilate his martial-spirit it should be possible. Plus how the great-sage is currently being outside the domain of the suppressing chaos-energy which he naturally adapted and adjusted himself to be under since day one after his second birth within the land of forgetfulness... now Lin should face no trouble whatsoever in directly using light-energy from the environment to learn everything from this incomplete-manual. “I didn’t expect this prime-light technique to be very simple like this... according to its instructions, during the spirit-apprentice realm all I need to do is. Accumulate light-energy by any means be that from the environment or by the support of formations and spirit-resources then afterwards comes the next step of unblocking the major-meridians! following the success of unblocking at least the first major-meridian is the step of fortifying the meridian-walls. Then widening the meridian-passages after fortifying the meridian-walls and spreading them further... then repeat fortification and expanding until I hit the absolute limit of what the passages of my major-meridians can take while strongly recommending doing so with every meridian-branch and minor-meridian I discover. Thankfully the creator of this incomplete prime-light technique was generous enough to mention the different strands of the light-element and ranked them from weak to strong,” The boy was superfast in processing the information which he found within the broken white-jade but if Mia or old Jin had seen how quick it took then they'll be cursing his seven ancestors for daring to call it simple! it required a second from the great-sage to comprehend a spirit-cultivation manual which could be graded as a level-four within the spirit-rank of techniques. Because nothing should be simple for an upstarting spirit-cultivator like Lin in the first place even if said cultivator had a strong background and a solid amount of information to back them up... not to mention a six years old brat who’s ignorant about a lot of things which can be basically categorized as common-knowledge to people of this world. “So... the white colored strands of the light-element is the mildest type of energy and the easiest one to use for light-element cultivators and the most tame of the light-energy strands while the yellow colored strands are much stronger and purer than the white-strands in a ratio of one to a hundred on average. But sometimes it’s a wee-bit more than that yet a yellow-strand can never be lower in worth of a hundred white-strands otherwise the yellow-strand would just decompose back into a hundred of the white-strands! gold colored strands equal a hundred of the yellow-strands and a thousand of the white-strands... or more when it comes to both colors. Meanwhile the dark-gold colored strands equals at least a hundred of the gold-strands or at least a thousand of the yellow-strands and finally... at least a hundred-thousand of the white-strands.” Lin muttered faintly to himself while gathering the unwashed plates which were left scattered everywhere since yesterday's meal then he retrieved all of them back into the space-ring and frowned slightly because his soul-force still remain confined within his body and the boy couldn't release it outside his skin at all.

After that the great-sage went down to check on the fish traps which he made by using the empty wooden-boxes which Weisheng previously as containers for the medicinal-ingredients before the space-ring switched owners. The first thing Lin noticed while climbing down the steep rocky-walls of the cliff is how light as a feather his body currently is on top of how much stronger the muscles all-over his body felt! especially how his arms and legs felt. Ever since discovering this unexpected upgrade within his physique the boy kept having this strong yet hidden intuition... which is that his true physical-capabilities aren’t revealed just yet. That made the great-sage feel eager to see how far his pumma-exercise will go if he tested his physical-capabilities right now but he can always undergo these evaluations once he secures their next meal. Because not only is Sun eager for tasting the meat of these slippery-bastards who live within the water but also the red-tiger seems hungry because Lin ate most of its portions without even noticing how much he’s eating! but despite eating so much just a day earlier the boy still remain feeling his hunger being slightly mild ever since he woke-up to find that his perseverance has paid-off with the result of a successful spirit-assimilation... yet below that mild feeling of hunger the great-sage intuitively felt like every one of his body-cells is screaming and requesting through his nerve-system for more nutrition like a horde of starved ghosts. Once Lin reached the area below where he placed the fish-traps earlier he found a scene which he wasn’t expecting at all. The boy was expecting a few or a couple of the medium-sized fish being stranded within the maze of rock which he created after they ate the bait which he left within the wooden-boxes... the largest fish he expected to find is the size of his arm or shorter. But the great-sage was met with the sight of a school of fish causing a traffic jam all-over the water near the shore and from the look of it both large and small fish are actually aggressively aiming for the area where his wooden-boxes are! marine-life is swarming and congesting the ocean water which clearly gained a hue of the red color by the blood of the weaker prey which were consumed by the stronger predators who came crunching, swallowing, and gobbling-up the smaller ones who dared stand in their way. But all of the marine-life Lin witnessed inside the water seemed mad because within their fish-eyes was bloodlust and greed while they crammed themselves into the narrow crack of the rocky-walls within the area where the steep-cliff meets the ocean water to form a side to the shores of this island. Nibbling on the wooden-boxes were the smaller ones which found this "treasure" first... yes treasure! these different water organisms treated the material from these empty wooden-boxes like delicacies and completely ignored the bait which the boy left earlier. From the behavior of these creatures... whatever stands in their way will be eaten before they resume eating the wooden-boxes again. However these wooden-boxes were nothing but scattered fragments of wood floating in the water now while the weak ones which were lucky to munch on a few parts of the boxes became prey to others and their blood became another treasure for newcomers and whomever dies or falls prey would enrich the thickness of temptation which attracted more prey and stronger predators. From the look of it this situation would only escalate and the trap while simple might affect the ecosystem of the marine-life in this area. “Sigh... did I waste these boxes? had I known such an aftereffect will follow then I wouldn't have wasted so much of them to make it, let's haul these idiots out of the water and fill our coffers to stop this madness then.” Lin frowned upon his obvious miscalculation then vented his frustration on the maddened-swarm of fish. Whatever fish the boy touches would be retrieved back in his space-ring and his action calmed the ongoing slaughter because the great-sage aimed for the troublemakers and left the ones who tried to find something to eat in this narrow area or within the rocky-maze. After an hour Lin’s space-ring was almost filled with all kinds of marine-life organisms. Still soon after he stopped the slaughter-madness in the water continued and bigger creatures started to gather in the water nearby his location. Surely these creatures were attracted to the smell of blood which never disappeared but spread further in a wider area after being diluted! feeling that his safety nearby the water is being questionable after these creatures appeared the boy climbed towards the top and received a scare of his life once he took a look downwards from the highest location of this tiny-island. Further away from the shallow water around the beach where the great-sage thought that’s where the big creatures would lurk... there’s a dozen or so of the extra-large marine-life creatures surrounding the tiny-island in a ring of terror.

“Sun definitely shouldn't go play in the ocean water anymore... these guys will swallow him whole in a heartbeat.” Lin muttered to himself then went to sit next to the sleeping tiger and began to prepare their next meal in a hurry because the boy himself is hungry after all and the great-sage wanted to start his first session of spirit-cultivation on a full-belly. “Is that a wing... do tigers grow wings in this world! but why wasn't Sun, Moon, or any of their offspring born with wings then?” Lin caught the sight of a small piece of leather flapping on the area of Sun's shoulder while he was flipping the fish meat on the grill. However these pair of small wings were too tiny for the red-tiger’s size meanwhile three lines of fine-bones are visible through the thin leather of the wings and ending with a cute talon-like tip on each bone and severing the entire wing into three segments. “They're a lot like a bat's wing and this blood-red color of the wings is almost indistinguishable from Sun’s red-fur... honestly if he didn’t actively flap them this much then I might’ve missed seeing how big that part has grown on his body especially without the help of my soul-sense... what a sneaky disguise! but this pair of wings is too tiny to carry his weight in this tiger-form. Maybe they can actually if he’s in his kitten-form.” The boy went towards the red-tiger and began studying the strange pair of wings on Sun's shoulder area with his eyes then gave his verdict while folding one of them gently with his hands. “Purr...” Sun opened his eyes then sniffed at the air once and the mouthwatering aroma of the grilled fish-meat hit his nose with its strong scent. Curiously the red-tiger nudged the great-sage in a naughty gesture before requesting to take a bite while licking its lips but its yellow eyes never left the prize. “It's alright to eat everything you want buddy... and there's more meat to come, but remember! don't go swimming in the water. Look... there's danger everywhere in this water.” After removing the crispy meat from the grill and placing the hot and big-sized chunks of meat on one of plates Lin placed it between Sun’s front paws to eat then the boy gestured for his tamed-beast to follow then took it towards the edge of the cliff and pointed towards the direction of each creature in the water. There from the edge of the cliff the great-sage witnessed how the red-tiger began snaring and showing his teeth in a gesture of being intimidated by these huge fellows. “Growl...” Despite his unwillingness to appear timid in front of his buddy Sun nodded once to agree with Lin because he felt the same dangerous vibes from these huge enemies which are moving underwater! only the ones living north of the boy's village gave this tiger the similar feelings of fear. “Buddy... someday you and I won't fear the likes of them, so eat up and grow stronger than them! become so strong to the degree of making them run in panic with their tails between their legs once they feel your presence. Heh... you like that notion, don't you?” The great-sage patted the red-fur of his tamed-beast and laughed in amusement when he saw it smirk a lot like his twin-sister Lily, “Alright then. I need to eat and grow stronger as well... otherwise you'll become so strong and leave me in your dust.” While walking towards the grill Lin muttered then he began organizing another layer of fish-meat on top of it and watched its fat melt and sizzle after getting licked by the fire from below. The red-tiger shivered once it heard what the boy just said then it remembered what happened during the last meal when its buddy ate almost everything on his own yesterday! it ate every scrap of food on its plate then shamelessly brought back the empty plate towards the great-sage asking for more. 

“Hey!... why are you competing over food with me for?” Finally Lin snapped at Sun when he didn't get anything to eat but a few small bites from each patch of the fish-meat which he prepared. “Purr... snort...” Only to find the red-tiger's sneering gaze as an answer in return and the boy’s face reddened in bemused anger and said : “Huh!... me? a glutton? are you kidding me?” The great-sage didn’t know whether to laugh or cry in this situation and muttered : “You ungrateful bastard... stop snatching my food already you gigantic lump of fur! dammit... now you're eating it raw as if it’s some sort of sushi.” The red-tiger squinted its eyes because this meat actually tasted tender and good even when it’s raw unlike the meat from the beasts which it hunted before. “Growl...” After consuming the latest addition of prepared fish-meat for the great-sage his tamed-beast just reclined on its side next to him and seemed happy that it ate more of his food.

“Y-you!... you won't get away scot-free after this challenge do you hear me?”

“Purr...”

“That’s it... I’ll tickle you to oblivion and I’m not stopping until I receive answers that I like.” Lin finally had enough when Sun showed the full extent of his ravenous-appetite and the boy quickly finished preparing the last few chunks of fish-meat and threw them on the grill before jumping on-top of the red-tiger's back. The great-sage caught the tender wings of his tamed-beast which succumbed at once and surrendered. “Humph!... who's the boss?” Lin leaned-over and directly looked at Sun's big yellow eyes from above triumphantly while asking. “Whine!...” The red-tiger nudged its buddy with its head and the boy smiled widely when he received the gesture of confirmation then rolled himself over its comfortable fur towards his tools to prepare some more food. After that incident the great-sage’s tamed-beast ate whatever that’s offered to it obediently and requested for some more each time before eating when its owner agreed.

Whenever Sun thought that Lin wouldn't be eating anymore the tiger could be found staring widely at the boy while he ate and ate and ate some more! loads and loads of fish-meat disappeared after great-sage Lin annihilated them with his jaws meanwhile his tamed-beast kept marveling at how is it possible for such a small body to eat that much. Finally when Sun was at the brink of crying honest tears to make Lin stop eating anymore because it’s frightening the red-tiger so much whenever it remembers that it’s its job to carry this little boy in the future... great-sage Lin burped in satisfaction and used a small fishbone to remove the small meat-shreds which got stuck in-between his teeth while patting his tummy. But an imaginary cold and dreadful hand of trepidation caught Sun from the area right below his stomach when he saw Lin look his way and smile. 'Buddy is so scary... why does he feel a lot like his scary twin-sister right now?' The red-tiger thought while reflexively avoiding eye-contact with its best-friend. If only could Sun see the future right now... then he would’ve gawked at how much his current thought was... spot-on! but that's something our dear Lin will come to know in the near future. A "secret" which troubled and eluded his miraculous-mind ever since great-sage Lin got rebirthed in this world... maybe he sensed the existence of this secret back in his previous life but he was too busy to distract himself with anything else and poured all of his focus on the research of the disintegration-shockwaves.

“Sun... what's wrong buddy? don't you like these ones? that’s strange you always liked the taste of barbecue-sauce.” The boy stood-up and walked towards his buddy and began to scratch the red-tiger’s fur on its back roughly and asked when he noticed how its latest plate of fish-meat is practically untouched despite it being offered a while ago! the great-sage didn’t order his tamed-beast to stop eating or anything which is a strange thing to happen because the tiger is clearly hungry yet something distracted it. “Purr!...” Sun quickly removed his distracting thoughts from his brain and buried these "unhealthy-thoughts" with the chunks of fish-meat which he filled his jaws with. “Well buddy... you're going to be the lookout again.” Lin nodded and said so when he saw Sun resume his feast and left him to go and sit cross-legged in the center of the basic spirit-gathering formation after making sure to amass a small mountain of fish-meat in front of his beast-companion.

“Time to take a look at my dantian,” Lin muttered then closed his eyes and focused his senses by following the surrounding strands of light-element which began gathering around him in the domain of fifty-meters which the formation caused. These strands of light-energy moved towards the area of his groin and they helped his senses enter with them. From there his inner-sight revealed his martial-spirit for the first time without being attached to his back. “That's it!... all this suffering and pain, only to settle my pair of wings in this... dark and gloomy place. There's nothing here at all... hmm! these light-energy strands actually turn into clouds once they enter this space of my dantian, just like how prime-light technique mentioned earlier... all kinds of spirit-energy strands actually do turn into gaseous-form once they're inside the dantians of spirit-cultivators in the realm of spirit-apprentice.” The boy was mildly and slightly disappointed with his achievements after all that agonizing pain which he went through during his attempts to assimilate the martial-spirit. Simply because the space of his dantian is both dark and... well empty! if it wasn't for his martial-spirit actually seemingly being cozy in there then he would've questioned the need of the painful step of crossing the mundane in the first place. Then quickly his attention turned towards the strange transformation of the strands of light-energy after entering the space of his dantian.

Lin soon was fully-immersed in taking as much as possible of the light-element strands into his dantian according to the teachings of the prime-light technique he shouldn't attempt to clear his first major-meridian until the dantian space reaches the saturation-point after accumulating light-energy. Until it happens the boy's spirit-cultivation is summarized in a single word "accumulation" and if his energy-tank is of the white-strands and the mildest type of the light-element... then the difficulties the great-sage is going to face in the stage of clearing his meridians will be harder than another person who filled their energy-tank with the yellow-strands! and it’s even better if the energy-tank is filled with the gold-strands or the dark-gold strands. Of course that aforementioned saturation-point means the peak of the first stage or sub-realm or level of the spirit-apprentice realm. After that there's eight sub-realms and eight other saturation-points until the first major-realm is surpassed. Above that major-realm there's eight major-realms and each major-realm is separated into nine sub-realms and each major-realm requires finer details and more conditions when it comes to accumulation than the previous major-realm.

Cultivation is a tedious, boring, and cumbersome journey where routine can only be welcomed as a good travelling-companion and handled with due diligence! because one wrong step and cultivation-deviation will be there to welcome you alongside mental-demons, heart-demons, vitality-deterioration, loss of lifespan, and poisoning of the spirit-energy which is... the hardest problem for any spirit-cultivator to deal with from all of the above. Lin has to constantly be mindful of all these unhealthy restrictions while he cultivates so that he wouldn’t suffer from any setback early on his journey... and boy-wonder was loving each and every small and tiny piece of detail in this new experience. For great-sage Lin this felt like exploring the best maze-quest in his life. Lin watched each strand very closely and treated them like a researcher would treat a test-subject! the boy studied these different strands from the moment they entered the space of the dantian until they began changing form and shape from the form of an energy-strand which looks like a shooting-star in shape until they turned into colorful clouds of gaseous-energy. The white-clouds are clearly the weakest of all clouds and the dark-gold clouds are the most badass gangsters in the dantian-space while the yellow-clouds are just minions to the gold-clouds. If the dantian-space of the great-sage is compared to the sea then the white-clouds are compared to weak and helpless shrimp and the yellow-clouds are just small fish feeding on the shrimp! the yellow-clouds can only be another helpless prey if they don’t obey the gold-clouds which are like fearless sharks who dare fight even the dark-gold clouds sometimes even if they’re stronger than them because the dark-gold clouds are like killer whales.

“Hmm!... after each dark-gold cloud reaches a certain degree of strength, said cloud has to offer some part of its energy which is like offering and sacrificing a piece itself in some sort of tribute to my spirit-wings... otherwise said cloud will be swallowed whole if it got cocky and refused to obey this rule,” Lin noticed how his pair of wings were tyrannically consuming some of the dark-gold clouds to supplement their feathers with more energy and each time this phenomenon happened one of the wings yellow-feathers would receive another line or more of the gold color. Like a ruler the boy's spirit-wings were administering their strong command on these newcomers which can be nothing more than loyal-subjects in the dantian-space because any type or color of the light-energy has to follow their laws in this domain which belong to the pair of wings... or be removed from it after getting consumed by one or their feathers! still the count of the dark-gold clouds is in the great minority within the dantian-space while the gold-clouds are a bit more by a few times. The yellow-clouds are a lot more than the gold-clouds but they only amount to at best a third of the total number of the white-clouds. Finally after a while the great-sage noticed how his dantian is separated into its unique chain of command after the short period of chaos which he witnessed in the beginning. Lin's pair of wings as the undisputed ruler of the dantian-space has the center-spot for itself while strongest force of the dark-gold clouds are orbiting it a bit closely. Outward from these dark-gold clouds is the gold-clouds and each cloud has to be a follower of one of the dark-gold clouds first to be allowed this close to the spirit-wings and these gold-clouds orbited their dark-gold cloud like planets would orbit the sun in a solar-system. The yellow-clouds being the minions of the gold-clouds... gathered themselves closely into different yellow-belts before covering the gold-cloud which they follow. The white-clouds are the farthest from the boy's spirit-wings and sometimes from them one yellow-cloud would be birthed and that cloud would either directly take one of the gold-clouds as a leader for itself which happens most of the time or go on a feeding-frenzy on the white-clouds until it upgrades itself once more into the gold color before joining one of the few dark-gold clouds which happened rarely... sometimes the rare incident of a gold-cloud refusing to become affiliated to any dark-gold cloud would happen and said cloud would either succeed in advancing itself into the dark-gold color or willingly sacrifice itself directly to the spirit-wings

The variety of shapes and colors these clouds created inside Lin's dantian-space looked a lot like stellar-nebulas and to the boy's delight these different stellar-nebulas constantly changed shape, colors, and position almost every second! with each additional group of light-energy great-sage Lin would see a different scenery and feel a bit stronger both physically and in the way he commands the light-energy. Not to mention how Lin would understand a bit more about the workings of the light-element and his pair of spirit-wings. The boy became more curious about light-energy and a lot more passionate to reach the saturation-point with the strongest type of light-energy. Finally great-sage Lin decided that he cultivated enough spirit-energy for today when he noticed how his accumulation of the light-energy started to slow down into a snail's pace. From the previous mad-rush which the strands of light-energy has been experiencing just to get into his dantian-space... now the strands of the light-element in the domain of the formation seemed to show signs of hesitation whether or not to join the other strands and enter Lin’s dantian. Only the white-strands and other colorful-strands of the low-rank spirit-energy resumed their mindless process of getting recruited to the boy’s dantian either directly which happened to the white-strands or after undergoing a stage of conversion which happened to the colorful-strands. Yet despite his newfound-passion for spirit-cultivation great-sage Lin didn't forget the current priority which is... removing all doubts on the matter of Jin Bao's disappearance. His soul-force is still shackled mysteriously within his body despite succeeding to take his first step in spirit-cultivation.

Opening his eyes... Lin never felt more refreshed or healthier in two lifetimes! because the air which he breathed is accompanied by strands of the light element and these strands seemed to be satisfied after fusing with his innards, muscles, skin, bones, and marrow. Unlike when he actively spirit-cultivated this occurrence of the light-energy fusing with his physique happened passively without the boy having to do anything or even give a single thought for that matter... on the other hand he has to actively concentrate on accumulating the light-energy within his dantian-space when he’s spirit-cultivating.

“The prime-light technique didn't mention anything about this side-effect at all... is it because it’s an incomplete-manual?” Lin looked around at the strands of light-element which he can feel and see everywhere with his eyes and deliberated this phenomenon while feeling the strands of energy which entered his body after the boy inhaled them fuse with different parts of his inner-system... and it made him feel better because wherever the strands of light-energy fused said area would feel somehow improved! unlike the different elements in his surroundings which great-sage Lin could feel but not see because they choose to hide themselves from his eyes... the light-element didn't shy-away from his sight anymore after Lin finished his first session of spirit-cultivation. “Whatever... it’s about time for me to know the reason why’s my soul-force is unresponsive? and what’s hindering its natural flow?” After shaking all these distracting thoughts from his head the boy closed his eyes again and focused on the teachings of the soul-strengthening technique and followed its instructions then repeated them over and over because he’s seeking to enter the space of his soul-world once again to see what’s going on with his soul-body. As if he's a blindfolded person touching his way home and trying to navigate a safe passage through a foreign territory... great-sage Lin was in the dark territories of his soul-world after finally being able to enter it once again when he succeeded in accumulating a bit of soul-force after meditating for a couple hours! but his soul-body is nowhere to be found around this faint apparel of soul-force which Lin was finally sent inside his own soul-world. Yes... the soul-body couldn't be found in his immediate surroundings but it could be vaguely felt by the boy... albeit very faintly. Somehow... great-sage Lin felt eyes watching every step he took in this utter-darkness of his soul-world but he couldn't see or pinpoint from where he’s being watched. However his gut-feeling was strongly indicating that these eyes are somewhere nearby yet they’re hidden from his senses. Lin didn’t have any sort of fear whatsoever while being within the dark territories of his soul-world for the first time and the faint apparel took one imaginary step after another towards the direction which he’s sensing his soul-body... the boy never hesitated or doubted himself... not even once. But every step forward that faint apparel of his took consumed almost a tenth of the soul-force within it and great-sage Lin had to constantly work on re-supplementing that apparel with more soul-force to replenish the exhausted amount of soul-force after every step the apparel takes. Otherwise it will just fade-out and if that happened he might be forced-out from his own soul-world. Yet every step the apparel took forward in this absolute darkness towards the location where Lin's mental-compass pointed-out the whereabouts of his soul-body the boy could feel his intuition practically screaming within his chest that he's indeed getting closer. Whenever his gut-feeling strengthened it helped great-sage Lin stay focused and keep doing his best while having faith that his effort wouldn’t be in vain! finally after god-knows how far he had to walk or how long it took to reach that location... Lin actually saw something at the horizon of his sight other than absolute-darkness. The utter-darkness is kept at bay by a thick curtain of silver-clouds which covered the scene from below where the dark water of the boy’s soul-world all the way up until his vision couldn’t reach the limit of these silver-clouds. While getting closer to them... great-sage Lin felt familiarity from these silver-clouds. Why did he feel that?.. Lin couldn't quite grasp the reason why but the budding-sorrow which kept festering and increasing within his heart is... unquestionably clear and genuinely felt. Once the boy’s apparel entered the boundaries of these silver-clouds he was met with grief, regret, anger, and a wide variety of negative emotions which battered the faint apparel without mercy. Unfazed like always by the effect of all kinds of negative emotions... since great-sage Lin already know it all about the existence of bipolar-consciousness and the mind-games these negative emotions can play on humans starting from the mind on the subconscious-level all the way to corrupting the heart and birthing unhealthy illusions of nonexistent scenarios. After guarding his mind... Lin moved in the thick silver-clouds and deeper and deeper he went.

Finally his soul-body was revealed when Lin was on the brink of giving up because these negative emotions became awfully thick and violently-strong the deeper inside he went! they were thick to the degree of resembling a clingy-swamp which constantly aimed to drag him into its suffocating mixture of heavy negative emotions. Likewise the boy's soul-body was faded which made him worry especially when he saw the lines of violet-color and the transparent-strands which were tied and wrapped around the skin of his soul-body! like maggots to the bones these violet and transparent shackles seemed to be trying to suppress the soul-body of great-sage Lin. Only his left-hand seemed to be resisting this strong suppression because of the silver tattoo of infinity which is on the back of Lin’s left-hand... even his pair of wings were not exempted from the fate which befell his soul-body. The golden-feather on the left-wing which has the silver symbol of infinity wasn't covered in any of the violet or transparent lines and strands of energy. “Old Jin once said that my martial-spirit has both an elemental and soul-nature, the symbol of infinity on the back of the left-hand being actually visible inside this soul-world and not in the material-world outside must mean that it’s related to the soul somehow, meanwhile the symbol of wings on the back of my right-hand in the real-world must be related to the elemental-nature which my martial-spirit has. If I were to bet then my money is on that right-hand symbol being somehow related to light-energy,” The boy concluded the most viable explanation to the relations and natures of the two strange symbols on his wings then focused on the soul-body which is currently struggling to remain intact under the restraints of these violet and transparent-strands. “In here I can feel the existence of my soul-force albeit very weakly because most of it is already passively being recruited to fight against these two violet and transparent strands, Mia said that her spirit-energy and sword-intent fused into a third type of energy before it assaulted me, then old Jin mentioned something about having to sacrifice his primordial-force to save me. I got to witness Mia's energy of sword-intent when she materialized her intent into that violet-sword, then met the younger-version of her when she gave me her space-ring to retrieve some stuff, then again when she—according to what she said—"innocently" smashed me from point-blank with that energy-fusion and almost took my life. That violet-color on my soul-body must be the energy of her sword-intent, while these invisible-strands which keep acting like chains on top of my soul-body must be the superior-rank element of time,” Seeing how weak and feeble his soul-body currently is under these circumstances great-sage Lin fused this weak apparel of soul-force with his soul-body and used this thin strand of will from within his soul-body and attempted to open his soul-eye to take control of the situation, “Aaaaahhh!... uraaaahhh... ughhhh...” But Lin found a torturous pain which could come from nowhere else other than directly from the deepest layers of hell apparently!... welcoming his arrival. Squealing, screaming, shrieking, howling, and screeching like a ghost under direct sunlight was the boy’s first natural-reaction when faced with that unbelievable amount of pain. Lin had already suffered an obnoxious death once and burned alive is the worst way to go and the most painful life-experience. That’s what great-sage Lin thought... he thought there’s no higher level of pain because humans’ lives is fragile and the fires of their souls is like a small fire dancing on a candlewick! now after he got to experience this painfully-thick and excruciating soul-torment which suffocates the soul directly yet very slowly to the degree of making the receiver honestly wish for the release of death yet leaving the final string-attached to life like a sadistic psychopath... made the experience of getting burned alive honestly seem like a prickle of a needle in comparison. Forget thinking straight... Lin felt like he’s going to honestly lose his sanity afterwards because of this pain. Once the first lick of this whip hit his consciousness with this unimaginable degree of pain... the boy was instantly on his knees and begging for a release from this torture with the most soul-rending screams! not to mention that this pain kept accumulating, rising, increasing, and intensifying with time.

While Lin suffered internally within the soul-world Sun watched his best-friend’s skin become very pale first then suddenly his buddy’s face flushed deep-red in color before blood began to trickle down from in-between the crack of his lips. Afterwards violet-color appeared dotting the boy’s skin... following that invisible-spots appeared inside each violet-dot. Suddenly Lin's pair of wings were activated then from each feather on both wings light-energy fell and began covering these violet-dots! from everywhere in the surrounding three-hundred meters the light-element came willingly to aid in the tug of war between these conflicting types of energy on the boy’s skin under the red-tiger’s watch. The invisible-energy inside the violet dots was the first to suffer under that onslaught from the light-energy. But that result came at the cost of light-energy that’s ten-times the amount of the exhausted time-element... only the dark-gold strands of the light-energy could hold their ground against a transparent-spot of time-energy and prevent it from invading Lin's physical-body again. The price of that result came at the cost of mutual-destruction where the dark-gold energy of light and the transparent-spot of time-energy both vanishing together from the eyes of the bot’s tamed-beast. But the light-energy had the advantage of receiving aid from the wings and renewable and constant support from the surrounding light-element in the area... meanwhile the time-energy had limited supply within the great-sage’s body and is already besieged from all fronts. One by one the transparent-spots of time-energy within the violet-dots on Lin’s skin were removed and the violet-dots which are made by the energy from Mia’s sword-intent is being held captive underneath a thick-layer of light-energy which has the gold-color then these violet-dots were led towards the boy's right-chest area... from there the violet-dots just vanished alongside the light-energy underneath Sun’s eyes. However this ongoing process caused Lin's spirit-wings to lose their luster gradually! from their previous yellow-feathers which were mostly lined with a few lines of the gold-color... to completely yellow-feathers then feathers of faded-yellow color to murky and yellowish-white feathers until they became completely white-feathers except for the pair of gold-feathers on the left and right-wing. These two feathers degraded into the murky yellowish-white color... meanwhile the dark-gold symbol of wings ended-up getting dragged a couple ranks lower to the yellow-color. Only a very thin line of gold-color remained on the edge of the symbol of wings and the same effect happened to the symbol of infinity and its silver-color which was shining previously faded almost to the faintest degree of the grey-color. The only thing keeping Lin's current struggle against the energy-fusion was the light-energy which kept racing towards him to aid his cause against sword-intent and time-energy from the surrounding-environment in a domain of three-hundred meters. From the worried eyes of Sun his buddy took about one hour or so to finish this strange fight... but from the boy's perspective! that agonizing suffering stretched and extended practically for an eternity which cause him despair to no end in sight.

Just like how the torturous soul-pain which came from hell began unexpectedly... it vanished just like that. Lin was left gasping and feeling disbelief after his situation was suddenly altered from one extremity to its polar-opposite when the sense of relief showered-over all of his senses! no more chains or restrictions of any kind is left on his soul-body anymore but the boy sensed how his current soul was left both weak and wounded. From the way it looks... it seems like his soul will be left scarred for life after that torturous-experience because great-sage Lin is sure that no joy in both lives could remove this memory. After getting his soul tortured and surviving it somehow... here he’s just gazing around at the thick silver-clouds which surround his soul-body. Lin is a hundred-percent sure right now that all the negative-emotions which he felt before and can still feel right now is emitted from these silver-clouds... and all these negative-emotions which feel suffocating to the boy belonged once to Jin Bao. Somehow the great-sage before experiencing soul torture could be described as mature, calm, and collected... but great-sage Lin after undergoing and surviving that experience is much wiser, mysterious, and deeper after his eyes received this layer of dark-gold color on the edge of their gold-pupils which made them seem full of... apathy! after sitting-up lethargically Lin stood ramrod-straight with his soul-body inside that soul-world for a whole minute in silence and his three eyes were filled with reverence and heartfelt-respect for the person who saved him by sacrificing his primordial-force. Looking at the silver dome of thick clouds which must’ve protected his feeble soul-body from getting swallowed by the blinding-darkness outside... hot silver-tears trickled uncontrollably from his silver-eye felt like burning lava on the bridge of his nose and face. The boy was burdened with guilt and heavy regret... these tears were seeking forgiveness from the remainder of soul-force which once belonged to old Jin. “This one... has really wronged you senior Jin, if only... had I listened to you and left Mia earlier, then none of this would’ve happened. You sacrificing yourself for my sake isn't what we agreed upon on our first encounter... me learning from you about the world in exchange for some materials was our deal, that’s why I swear to do my absolute best to get to the bottom of this case of your disappearance. Once I am successful in reaching the realm of soul-clone... let my soul shatter and my dao disperse if I hesitate even once in sending some part of my soul inside that mysterious ring to search for you. I swear on my spirit... soul... and every last drop of blood within my body... to defy my firm moral conducts and basic principles, I’m fine if I’m no longer can be considered as a normal and steady example human-being to avenge you senior... if it turned-out that you no longer share this world with me. Yi Shirong... I don’t know you, but I promise to give you the suffering which old Jin wished that you receive by my hands if my teacher is really dead, or I’m an animal which deserves the worst and most humiliating kind of death.” While bowing down to offer his respect... Lin shouted his oath but when he straightened his back his silver-eye no longer had any tears. However there’s a gleam of cold-apathy within his pair of gold eyes instead. Being no longer strong enough to remain within this soul-world and dog-tired beyond his capabilities by leagues and leagues... Lin quit his soul-world only to find that his clothes are covered in his own blood! his pair of wings vastly different compared to before and his breathing is rugged and quick while his eyelids were droopy and heavy. After smiling weakly at the worried sight of Sun who supported his upper-body from toppling to the side with a paw and seemed to be panicking because the red-tiger didn’t know how could it help in this situation.

Lin gave-in to sleep to release his exhausted self into the comfort of deep unconsciousness... in his sleep Lin dreamed that he has two hearts within his chest! one on the left-side and is pumping blood and vitality throughout his body and one on the right-side but it’s motionless-still and calm... entirely colorless and transparent like if it’s made completely from see-through glass. Then he woke-up feeling thirsty, hungry, and extremely exhausted and found himself sweating bullets and welcomed by the glaring-sun which mercilessly scorched at the skin of his body. Sun is nearby chewing on a strange fish which has grotesque-feelers on its head and is the size of an overly-huge shark and looked very close in proximity and shape to a "megalodon" the fossil shark which could be found in many seas back on earth during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. Next to the red-tiger’s dining area there’s a small mountain of fish-bones almost sixty-meters high and a few dozen meters wide. Looking at the plate which he served his tamed-beast the last meal and his bloodstained-clothes which got removed from his body and tossed to the side—mostly Sun’s doing—the plate has mold covering the scraps of food which the red-tiger left after annihilating the small mountain of roasted fish-meat its buddy had left him. Meanwhile the blood traces on the clothes of great-sage Lin had already passed the stage of coagulation! they’re covered in disgusting maggots and has long dried and consumed by these squishy creatures but the faint trace and color of blood still exists to prove the long time which Lin spent in his sleep. At least the boy was out for a whole week and of that he’s sure enough! while supporting his upper-body on his elbows... great-sage Lin sat-up with some difficulty and held his head with both hands to ease the dizzying sway which hit out of nowhere. “Quite a mess that you caused before you left Mia. If I were you... I would really pray for all that which is holy and sacred... that Lily never catches-wind of what you did to me,” After muttering faintly with his hoarse voice through a dry and parched-throat Lin flipped the hand which has the space-ring and brought-out a globe of fresh and cold water which fell on top of his body, “Huff... so thirsty!” the boy raised his obviously shriveled and thin arm above his mouth and allowed a thin trickle of water to fall inside his mouth for him to drink and his tamed-beast enthusiastically and unhesitatingly left the meal of meat and began drinking this fresh water like some kind of a thirsty ghost. The red-tiger clearly and visibly lost a lot of weight despite this evidence of how much it hunted and ate on its own while its buddy slept! Sun’s joyful-eyes which kept looking towards his best-friend were uplifting Lin's mood. Seeing his beast-companion being so cheerful while licking fresh water from the surface of the ground made great-sage Lin smile before retrieving the bathtub and filling it with fresh water for this thirsty red-tiger to drink his full. “Sorry for making you so worried about me buddy... and thank you for taking care of me all this time.” Lin rested his back on Sun's belly and said while feeling grateful in having saved this red-tiger one day from the carcass of its dead mother. Because just like how his beast-companion depends on the boy... great-sage Lin depends on it back just the same! just like how it’s proven right now... this fierce tiger has always been acting like Lin's last and final safety-net.

“Purr...” Sun hugged Lin towards his body and rested there in this cool puddle of water. The previous days were filled with worry for its sick friend... in the beginning the red-tiger suffered for days in silence from the hunger and thirst just to guard the boy! and his buddy slept just like the dead and never responded to all the calls which it made. Finally Sun had to go hunt something and his only option was these "fishes" before his own strength fades anymore and leaves him completely because of this hunger. Not to mention that it rarely slept at all in a very long time because the creepy-guys in the water increased in number during the first few days of Lin's sleep... then these marine-life organisms fought for two days straight and the island's shallow-water was turned red by the blood-bath! Sun had to risk being attacked when he went down to the shore-area to hunt and almost got caught by a scary green-creature with tentacles that looked like an octopus. Thankfully the red-tiger was careful not to go anywhere far from the shore and was quick enough to leave the water at the first sign of danger... later it learned to watch these sea creatures from a safe-height above the shore very carefully and only attempt to hunt when there's a few of the dangerous ones in the surrounding territory of its hunting-area. Later Sun learned to be careful if there’s any of the fast ones nearby and be mindful if there’s because one silver fish was crazy and very quick... it has a pointy edge on its head which is longer than the weapon of Bald-Staff. After the red-tiger saw the silver fish turn the green-octopus which had lots of scary tentacles into swiss-cheese in a span of a few minutes before eating it... Sun immediately raised the threat level of that quick creature into similar danger to the ones in deep-water despite it being actually weaker than the ones in the deep waters. Because Sun saw it actually come and go gracefully from the deep water to the shores of the island yet none of the scary and big guys could catch it at all. The red-tiger avoided it like the plague because it’s fast and a few times he missed the perfect opportunity to hunt because it was in the vicinity. Now that Lin is awake... then for Sun that means that he can finally rest! yes he’s feeling hungry right now... very true. But... this exhaustion and weakness which the red-tiger has been enduring for a long time just to ensure that it keep protecting its buddy. This problem can't be solved by just food... Sun knew what he needs long ago. He need to sleep... very badly right now.

Lin ran his palms gently on Sun's neck and smiled apologetically while caressing this dirty fur... obviously the red-tiger has lost a lot of weight because it was critically dehydrated. Clearly his buddy must've managed to survive without water all that time by slurping hot blood from his prey! but marine-life already have higher concentration of sodium within their blood—which must’ve in a way caused Sun to become even more thirsty—since nothing is comparable to fresh water after all... the red-tiger endured for a little bit longer until he drank before surrendering completely to sleep. Notable thing on its body is the pair of bat-like wings which grew a couple sizes larger and the three bones on each wing and the talon on each end tougher and deadlier! while being folded at Sun's sides these two wings could no longer go unnoticeable by anyone anymore and Lin is sure that at this rate of growth... in no time these pair of wings on his buddy’s shoulders will soon be able to support the tiger’s weight in prolonged flights while being in its true-form.

After retrieving some clothes from his space-ring Lin quickly put them on and went to deal with the remainder of Sun's catch and using that fish-meat the boy made a stew with whatever seeds he has left from home. His soul-force is no longer separated from his control but great-sage Lin couldn't stretch the ability of soul-sense farther than a few hundred meters! unlike before when its maximum range was three kilometers.

But the view of his soul-sense this time felt upgraded somehow because it was... different. In a way it can be said that it’s more potent and... thorough. While eating... Lin kept his soul-sense active and experimented with it to get a feel for this new upgrade which he didn’t expect! especially when his abilities and range aren’t functioning at their best. But this current soul-sense caught every detail on miniscule-level unlike how he had to shrink his soul-sense previously to see the various types of spirit-energy and to differentiate and categorize the colorful-strands of the elements... the upgraded soul-force is a very pleasant... yet very saddening addition for the boy right now because of Jin Bao's disappearance. It felt like the farewell-gift from that unfortunate-senior. “My martial-spirit and soul-body had suffered their fair share of hardships for a while now... meanwhile my body is severely malnourished, after that long time which I spent unconscious, I’m surprised that I didn’t fall into a coma which would’ve been very dangerous, I guess a recuperation period is a must.” Lin looked at the feathers of his wings which turned white in color except for a pair! then at his skinny arms and legs which lost a few layers of their previous size. Finally the short distance of his soul-sense made him sigh and the boy muttered sadly while hesitating whether or not should he try flying right now. His reliance while flying is mainly the wide range and ability to scan which his soul-sense provides plus the limitation which his soul-force place on the pair of wings! the soul-force which could restrict and restrain light itself plus the lightning-quick analysis of his mind when it comes to the flying-trajectory and the all-encompassing view of the surrounding-environment which is constantly sent by his soul-sense helps him avoid smashing face-first into any kind of obstacle before his eyes even get to see it... say nothing of actually reacting. If Lin has a slight delay of information while flying because of his current situation where his soul-sense is upgraded in focus yet its range is smaller... then he could die without even knowing how it happened or what did he actually hit if his soul-force didn’t firmly contain and control the speed of flight which these pair of wings are moving at. Lin never forgot the lesson of his first take off... that experience made him prefer being careful, slow, and alive than reckless, fast, and a smudge of meat-patty on some hard rock. The next thing he learned was to always suppress his spirit-wings with soul-force to make sure that they’re moving slower! because without doing so... then the boy is just riding one extremely fast ray of light which is simply hurling him forward at extreme velocity towards wherever that ray is pointing towards. If he doesn’t die after smashing into something tougher than his physique then great-sage Lin would die after organ-failure or asphyxiation. If the speed of his flight is much faster than what causes the previous symptoms... then his flesh and bones would just decompose or outright burn after the friction reaches the limit. Finally after many trials Lin was able to find the right proportions and the exact measurements to counter the blind and reckless speed of his wing’s flight with the help of soul-force which powered and controlled the directions... yet now after his pair of wings lost all of their previous weight and juice they turned into one empty husk in the shape of white-feathers after losing the great-majority of fuel in the tank... the threat from these spirit-wings is nothing compared to before and the boy knew that the danger is less right now. But great-sage Lin understood that he must learn to control his wings from scratch once again! but since his soul-force got messed up then he needs to regain at least half the amount of his previous maximum soul-force before even attempting to do any trial. Sighing... Lin deactivated his wings and dragged his soul-sense back into his head.

He knew that these plans are to be initiated once the duration of his recuperation is over because right now the boy wanted to know what his body is capable of.

Old Jin and Mia plus some of the alchemy books in his space-ring has mentioned barbarians and the special bloodline which the descendants of that race inherits! from Mia... Lin learned that he must be a member of that race and a descendant of barbarians which makes him blessed with a bloodline that gives him superiority when it comes to the system of body-refinement. From the alchemy books... great-sage Lin learned the name of a few pills which can specifically be helpful to make refiners of qi-vitality unblock some specific acupoints if said acupoints couldn’t be naturally opened while some pills even help in forging a pathway between a group of acupoints and connect them together for qi-vitality to circulate through. From Mia... the boy knew that other than loose-cultivators whom were chased into living in the land of forgetfulness for whatever reason the others who live in his homeland are mostly barbarian-descendants... and that's because regular mortals don't get to even live long in that land! only barbarians can because of their super strong physiques and gushing vitality allows them to survive the harshness of this land. The saintess mentioned that his village must be located in the outer-circle of this land and that’s within the borders of the biggest continent... which is to her luck for certain that Lin’s family is from the safest parts of the land of forgetfulness. Because deeper in the land of forgetfulness there's many tales of beasts which are stronger than spirit-kings if both parties contended then these beasts could win by using the strength of only their physiques since these beasts which dwell the inner territories are used to living in an environment which is lacking in spirit-energy. What makes the matters worse for spirit-cultivators which seek to delve deeper inside the land of forgetfulness is that this unique breed of beasts can be counted by the millions! and that's only once these unwelcomed spirit-cultivators cross a considerably short-distance beyond the borders of this land. Not to mention how the climate starts to become chaotically horrible and harsh for those who couldn’t fight the weather with a good and thick layer of spirit-armor or those who doesn’t have extremely refined qi-vitality circulating within their bodies. Lin didn't forget how his father Tai used to be freakishly powerful with fists stronger than solid rocks once he first witnessed his old-man’s capabilities... then that freakishly strong person turned into a walking superman after Lily juiced the man with protein and vitamin extractions and supplemented their... father with a pre-calculated training regime. Great-sage Lin smiled when he remembered how the toughest bulletproof-glass which he made in this life actually lost to the ex-caveman’s skin in durability, strength, impact-absorption, weight-to-functionality, and implementation all in all. Even transparent-aluminium despite being extremely light-weight material lost in the end to the man’s tough skin. Lin was actually using these layers of fortified fiberglass to test the ability of his spirit-wings to melt any matter which hinders its path and flight-trajectory. Being a person blessed with similar genes... Lin wanted to achieve greatness and upgrade his own physique to such unbelievable standards as well which why he took his stance according to the pumma-manual then started to breathe deeply while doing his warm-up exercise.

In the span of two years the boy has already advanced in his training-menu from the initial stages of the pumma-manual which is a training for beginners and those who wish to become a bit more fit and healthy all the way to the advanced-stages and last time he checked... Lin was already capable of storing thermal-energy within his skeleton by shivering the muscles of his body and release it however he likes through the pores of his skin. Which means... that the muscles of his body doesn’t need to overextend their motions to deliver force any longer! every single move can be compact to the minimum stretch yet explosively delivered with a flare of pinpointed thermal-burst. A single shrug from his shoulders, twist of his waist, a shift of stance, raise of a knee, a flap of an elbow, a snap of a wrist, push of a palm or a press of a finger would do a hundred times more damage to an enemy if he so wanted. Not to mention actually slamming a fist or delivering any sort of kick with full power. The boy is aware that his current physical-condition isn't the best that it could be to make a correct estimation for his physical-abilities and that this state isn’t one which he should hope to break previous records with. But great-sage Lin knows that he has to remove this "accumulated rust" from his joints preferably sooner than later because such rust is caused by the days which he spent unconscious without proper nourishment or physical-exercise. Lin is sure that the surrounding light-energy helped save his body from a fate which is much more unfortunate that this... and he’s feeling immense gratefulness for that element because of it! because spending all these days without food or water while having such a weakened and wounded soul-body and such a martial-spirit which is so drained of its energy could be very fatal. Without the light-energy taking care of him "somehow" and the helpless assistance of Sun from the side... then the boy might’ve never opened his eyes. Of course he doesn’t know anything about Lily’s encounter with the minister and what went afterwards... that’s why Lin is becoming overly sentimental as usual.

While flexing his limbs and the joints of his body... great-sage Lin felt the previous sense of being stiff gradually get shaken-off. Like some sort of polar-bear scattering and flinging snow off of its body after successfully surpassing some harsh winter in a long session of hibernation... second after second the boy's arms and legs picked-up in speed and their movements as well as his breathing which never stopped consuming and inhaling at least a few dozen strands of light-energy from the surrounding environment! these strands which entered Lin’s lungs after each of his inhales... never came back out with his exhales. While great-sage Lin exercised his pumma-manual for the first time outside the land of forgetfulness... the strands of light-energy which successfully entered inside his system quickly joined his blood-stream and the strands pretty eagerly fused themselves with every cell they encountered! under a condition which is said body-cell isn’t already occupied by another strand of light-energy. If Lin did use his improved ability of soul-sense to look inwardly at his body instead of outwardly at the outside world then he would've seen how the strands of light-energy are actually treating the cells of his body no-differently than "vacant houses" which is a phenomenon that the boy’s curious nature would’ve loved to see. However... great-sage Lin was so immersed in the feeling of his newfound power and enjoying the weightless sense which accompanied it especially since his quick combinations were flowing like a gentle river but the hidden force underneath each move could prove deadly to any target that dares to receive them. While he concentrated on shivering the muscles of his body to better his control over that deadly technique... there was another bout of the stabbing-pain from his chest which Lin couldn’t be any more familiar with. But strangely the fourth-time the boy washed his impurities he didn't even frown or twitch when the pain suddenly arrived and pierced deeply at his chest! great-sage Lin calmly continued his training like an emotionless zombie which could frighten his peers from the system of qi-vitality... it’s commonly known and understood between body-refiners that advance-stages of washing-impurities actually hurt like a hell because the deeper you dig the harder it is and the stronger it hits. Ever since his soul received a torture from hell and experiencing that kind of unforgettable-pain such "tickling-pain" from washing his impurities for the fourth-time is nothing more than... child’s play. It doesn’t even require him to halt his exercise which why great-sage Lin resumed being focused on refining his use of the technique of shivering his muscles while washing his impurities in tandem. If Mia had seen such a sight then she'll certainly gawk at how emotionless Lin is right now.

Somehow... Lin was able to perfect that shivering technique before ending his exercise and found himself with nothing more to learn from the pumma-manual... the rest is to strengthen his muscles in various ways which helps him build the body which can help him deal with the required task. Muscles have different types and each type has its advantages and disadvantages... speed, power, stamina, efficient on long-term tasks or short-term, explosiveness or stability, the ratio within each group of muscles give a different result which in the end can make the difference between two combatants. The final stage and maybe the most important stage of the pumma-manual is the introduction of a system which is entirely, completely, and thoroughly pre-calculated on how to build the body and alter its muscles efficiently in the shortest time without suffering from the aftereffects which other manuals can’t help you avoid. After sighing the boy stopped his exercise because he knew that he has "regrettably" reached the point where the pumma-manual can no longer teach him anything new. Now all he has to do is to train his body and raise its strength while ensuring that his muscles maintain their current degree of flexibility so that his control over the various techniques which he learned from the pumma-manual. If his power—be that explosive-power or standard and average-power—starts to slow-down in its increase with the preferable muscle-group and measurements then Lin would be required to add stamina-exercises to increase his stamina until he reaches a wall which he can’t cross then turn back his attention towards speed-exercises then flexibility then focus on power then stamina and the circle never stops until his muscles has no way of improving again! and that’s the peak of his potential yet despite how easy it might seem to actually finish learning everything from the pumma-manual... it actually isn’t. Because normally people would be required to reach their peak before attaining the perfect-state of the manual and calling themselves masters who has nothing else to learn. But great-sage Lin did that without having to reach his body's maximum potential because he attained similar state with his current capabilities. The trick to maintain his mastery of the pumma-manual in the future is to mutually raise the stats of his body while keeping a firm control over what he learned from the manual... otherwise he can easily hurt himself while performing a simple move which he could previously perform with ease yet due to a minor or a slight gain of strength or speed he destroys himself internally first before the target. Lin stood still to savor this wonderful feeling of being capable of sensing every fiber of his muscles... no matter how hard he exercised previously the boy never felt like he truly mastered control over this smaller body of his until this moment.

“Finally... I can start building up strength however much the situation requires! let's see first how my current stats have changed since the last time I checked.” Great-sage Lin muttered faintly to himself while walking towards some loose rocks and stones... the boy began lifting them above head-level one by one starting with the ones which are smaller in size. But quickly Lin was surprised by the final result when he found that he can lift a stone which is weighing approximately two-hundred and fifty kilograms pretty easily and raise it above head-level for more than a minute without his arms even starting to shake! the sheer-impossibility of this feat plus the clear indication that he can actually raise stones of more weight made the great-sage grin and care not to attempt to measure his strength anymore... simply because he wanted to use an accurate method for it. Likewise his previous records of both speed and stamina were demolished by his current-capabilities which was very much to Lin's delight and he wished that Shuo or old Ba were here with him right now so that they can spar a little.

“Heh... I’m only six years old and I can already do all that while not being in my tip-top shape! just how far can my abilities go in this spirit-world... I wonder,” Lin took-off his clothes which were already drenched in sweat mixed with some of the stinky impurities then soaked himself in the cool water of the bathtub after giving his body a quick and thorough cleaning, “I really should do something to quickly recover because the situation in the water around the island is becoming chaotic... from the look of it there’s more and more of these marine-life organisms which were attracted towards this island.” While looking at the water below all around them... the boy decided to leave this place first thing once his spirit-wings are back under his control. Because if some kind of amphibian-creature which is capable of fighting both on water and land arrived... then he and Sun will suffer if they couldn't protect this temporary-post. Not to mention if some kind of big-sized bird or a flock of those spotted this "delicious gathering" of marine-life then their situation would be much worse... great-sage Lin has already noticed the variety of birds which are of different sizes but their sizes are considered "safe-sizes" and these birds which were attracted here to this location and started to nest different places on the island within the areas below the summit or on the steep edges of the cliff-wall didn’t dare snatch their location because the red-tiger’s existence made them wary of coming anywhere nearby the island’s top spot.

After donning a new set of clean clothes Lin took the short-sword which Mia left next to the spirit-gathering formation before she broke-through and ignored it like nothing afterwards then went down towards the shore to restock his space-ring with some fresh fish-meat because the amount which he has left within his ring isn’t sufficient to sustain Sun for a single meal... but he noticed something strange while standing waist-deep in the water of the shore. Some silver-fish which looks a lot similar to an enlarged swordfish just attempted to sneak-attack the boy... that sneaky fish could actually change its size and transform like Sun without losing much of its speed. But unfortunately that swordfish ended-up lodging itself in the rocks of the cliff-wall with its long and pointy spear-like tip once great-sage Lin avoided its piercing attack then he quickly slammed its head with a full-power punch then scooped it out from the water with both hands when it was dizzy! the silver-fish squirmed then transformed back into its original size which burdened Lin’s arms because he couldn’t support the weight that surpassed his ability to withstand. But what made matters worse was that he couldn’t directly store this swordfish in his space-ring despite actually trying three times to no avail... knowing that he has to either release it back into the water or do something to stop it from escaping and quickly. The boy pushed the swordfish against the cliff-wall then slammed its midsection with his left-shoulder before extending his right-hand quickly to grab the short-sword which he brought in-case of an emergency... thankfully he did! tightening his grip on the leather-handle of the short-sword which felt slightly wide for his small hands... great-sage Lin emotionlessly pierced the tip in the wide fisheye then pulled it and pierced again and again until this side of its head had accumulated nine deep wounds and its tail stopped slamming against the cliff-wall. Then Lin finally allowed the big silver-fish to touch the water again before severing its head with Weisheng's short-sword. That sword is very sharp and the boy has been using it like some sort of kitchen knife for a while now... if the assassin which was called Weisheng did see great-sage Lin using one of his best spirit-weapons as a piece of "kitchenware" then he would've coughed blood before embracing the death-reaper once again! god knows how the man will feel if did hear Lin's opinion on how light-weight the short-sword felt in his hands. Because despite being only seventy-centimeters long and two-fingers wide... that sword already weighs one-hundred kilograms. Afterwards the boy didn’t suffer any sorts of sneak-attacks and it took him about fifteen-minutes to collect enough to suffice them for three meals or so which should be enough until he finds a solution to use his spirit-wings again. Once great-sage Lin arrived at their campsite at the summit and started to handle the carcass of the silver-swordfish... Sun opened his eyes and stared wide in shock at the "fast-fella" which endangered him during the past few days! while his buddy chopped it to large segments and was prepared to begin grilling it... somehow the red-tiger felt sorry for it. But another layer of admiration for its best-friend was added from the beast which went to sit next to its owner who prepared their next meal underneath the dark of the night. 'As long as Lin is awake and healthy then Sun has no reason to worry whatsoever about the next meals or any reason to care about their next destination.' The red-tiger thought so while nudging the boy intimately... it was really happy that things are starting to go back to what they used to be with it being alone in the company of its buddy.

“Heh... not yet. I found this core inside this silver-swordfish-”

“Growl... snort...”

Lin patted the thick front-limb of Sun who anxiously wanted to eat his first cooked meal in a long while then remembered the blue-core which he found inside the head of this swordfish... but once the boy brought it close to the red-tiger it gave an expression of being disgusted with this blue-core and moved away.

“huh!... where are you going budd-” Before he got to finish his words great-sage Lin found his tamed-beast use its paws to flip a stone away which exposed a small crack and within it was three similar blue-cores but with different sizes! Lin understood that he missed them whenever he unleashed his weak soul-sense because he mostly aimed to spread his senses further since solid-obstacles can limit his soul-sense to one-tenth of its maximum-range.

“Purr...” Sun smirked at his buddy then nudged him again which meant : 'Go-on buddy take them if you want... I don’t like these cores.' Then the red-tiger returned to crouch nearby the fire and kept inhaling the smell of the fish-meat which started to drip drops of its fat on the burning coal below it.

“Alright then I’ll keep them safe inside my ring... just tell me whenever you want them back buddy.” The boy shrugged then stored the four blue-cores back inside his space-ring. But from the uninterested-reaction of the red-tiger after hearing what its human-companion just said... probably Sun would forget everything about these blue-cores after this meal. Great-sage Lin didn’t give it much thought and diligently began his cooking... after handing-out to his beast-companion his last portion and eating whatever that remained of his own portion then collecting his tools back inside the ring. Lin went to sit-down in the center of the spirit-gathering formation and calmly began his meditation on the soul-strengthening technique.

Despite it being made for sole purpose of spirit-energy accumulation... the boy still felt better connection with his soul-force when he used the spirit-gathering formation during his meditation to soul-cultivate and at once great-sage Lin noticed his soul-view was shifted towards his soul-world and specifically at the soul-body. Immediately he could see how his soul-body which was previously faded is currently looking a lot better! the symbol of infinity which is on the back of his left-hand is causing the silver-clouds nearby the soul-body to swirl towards the left-hand before the symbol sucked these silver-clouds. Meanwhile the symbol of infinity which is on the murky-yellow colored feather of the left-wing kept blinking on and off in a weak glow of the silver-color. After each glow the color of the symbol would gain slightly more from the silver color and lose slightly some of its current grey-color. Lin's soul-force would rise-up in quantity after the disappearance of each of the silver-clouds and first thing that the boy noticed once his awareness arrived in this soul-world of his is... the swirling-whirlwind which was linking the silver-clouds to the symbol of infinity on the back of his left-hand instantly tripled in size! and the process of inhalation which the symbol was causing picked-up in speed with the presence of the great-sage. “I can feel your unwillingness senior Jin... I truly am! just like how I promised and swore before... your sacrifice... shall never... go in vain,” Lin spoke peacefully with the surrounding silver-clouds because that’s the primordial-force which is filled with Jin Bao's negative-emotions, “Heh... despite being few and far between our conversations were... you always had my well-being in every step I took, I'm such a fool... you constantly warned me, to keep my distance from Mia and to be careful. But... I was so confident in myself and in... her.” While watching this phenomenon change from just a twirling-whirlwind to a hurricane and sensing his soul-force increase the boy kept replaying each advice which Jin Bao gave over and over in his head... great-sage Lin was trying very hard to itch them on his mind. Lin spent three days and three nights digesting these silver-clouds and he noticed how this symbol of infinity kept purifying these silver-clouds which are composed of soul-force... but Jin Bao's negative-emotions within the silver-clouds got minced-away and removed first by the symbol of infinity on the back of his left-hand before the other symbol of infinity on the left-wing consumed the pure soul-force to restore its previous shiny silver-color.

Sometimes... Lin would see parts and pieces of memories from when Jin Bao was actually alive. The boy saw how the man lived his first years within a family that suffered from extreme-poverty where the father worked as a foot-soldier and one of many useless guards in a small city! his mother was a kind-hearted and simple housewife which gave her best every day to help her husband by properly raising their two children while earning some meager money by creating some articles and pieces of wool-clothes for a few of her neighbors since her needlework is acceptable. Years later after his birth and specifically during his eighth-year of life... Jin Bao suddenly awakened his martial-spirit during a fight with an older kid from his neighborhood when he protected his younger-sister because she was being bullied. His parents became ecstatic and distant relatives—which shared the same name of the family before yet didn’t really care about the existence of Jin Bao’s small-family before hearing the news—which were nothing but strange "foreigners" to the boy saw little-Jin as their hope which would someday improve their status from a regular family of mortals living in the mundane to the "Bao-clan" which is supported by a true spirit-cultivator. Gifts and impatient-care which was always accompanied-by anxious expectations for the young boy to quickly grow was the treatment which Jin Bao received from these distant-relatives. Only... all of these high-expectations in the end turned into great-disappointments in the hearts of these people! both of Jin’s parents weren’t saddened or disappointed like these distant-relatives when they discovered that the talent of their kid in cultivating spirit-energy is clearly lacking because his accumulation is rising-up very slowly despite little-Jin’s affinity to the basic-element of water which is and easy type of spirit-energy to cultivate. Finally their son’s potential was judged by a benevolent-senior as being "average" at best... that’s the moment which these distant-relatives revealed their true-colors to the members of this small-family. Jin Bao learned too early how this world can quickly shift and how fast can people’s hearts change but he still had his family and some kindness left within his heart. It took the boy a full twelve-years to reach the ninth-stage of the spirit-apprentice realm... and that’s when the first calamity of his life struck! Jin Bao’s younger-sister got snatched in public by some spirit-cultivator which happened to be passing through their small city and the innocent girl’s fate was being raped by an animal in the skin of a human-being then tossed aside by the man like nothing but... trash. That man was two major-realms higher than Jin Bao's cultivation at the time when little-Jin was only twenty years old... add to that how this spirit-cultivator had the backing of an entire sect him up which made the city-lord that’s supposed to protect everyone within the city under his rule! clearly demonstrate that he has nothing to do or say about this incident but to close an eye and mind his business because the city-lord was frightened by the influence of that neighboring-sect. Jin Bao’s younger-sister was a beauty blessed with a special type of charm and kindness... but her being a mortal-victim actually made spirit-cultivators sneer whenever they heard what kind of fate befell the girl who didn’t live to see much of the world yet... many said : “It's her honor to be taken by a spirit-cultivator.” or “She should thank the heavens that brother... didn't slit her throat after enjoying her flesh to his satisfaction, because I would’ve done so if I’m not planning on taking her as a concubine or a maid, maybe a servant would suit her better.” These were some of the opinions in the conversations Jin Bao overheard from a few spirit-cultivators dinning in a restaurant nearby his house... however these individuals openly revealed the insignia of the same sect they shared with the person who committed the crime against Jin Bao’s sister.

His younger-sister changed from that day... her state degraded daily afterwards and she turned awfully-silent all the time which is the polar-opposite from her previously cheerful and talkative-personality! gradually the girl stopped eating and helping her mother with anything in the house then locked herself up in her room all day and Jin Bao’s mother spoke faintly with her eldest son about her worries since the woman noticed how her daughter’s belly started to swell while some symptoms of pregnancy could be seen on the girl. Jin Bao couldn’t focus on his cultivation that night at all and decided to make the journey later to the sect of that repulsive-person and personally send the news... hoping that maybe if the man knew that he’s fortunate to receive a baby despite the atrocity he made then he would repent and take his sister as a concubine at least. After all it’s hard for spirit-cultivators to conceive offspring on a normal basis and from what he learned about that person is that he actually has only one daughter and rumor has it that the man openly mentioned once how much he yearns for a son or more daughters... but an old injury to his vitality makes it hard and extremely rare to happen. However... fate had a different saying in this matter because Jin Bao returned from his work under grandmaster Han the formation expert that day after asking for permission to take a leave of absence to deliver the news! young-Jin was met with the sight of his wailing mother who hugged the dead and motionless body of his little-sister which not only opened her belly with what appears to be a blunt object but also used that same blunt-weapon to squash her own fetus before breathing her last. He had to hide the fact about his sister’s pregnancy from everyone... his father included. But a few days later... his mother followed her daughter into death after she hanged herself from the main-beam of the house and Jin Bao lost the last shred of kindness within his heart at that moment. His poor father just helplessly drank his grief in the solitude of night on his own in absolute silence... but Lin saw the look of blame and disappointment in the eyes of jin Bao’s father whenever the soldier looked towards his only son. In the end... Jin Bao just couldn't stand and endure this frustrating-atmosphere and decided to grab his stuff and leave. Leave the city... leave his work... leave his home... leave these memories... leave the sight of his father because maybe if he left the old-man wouldn’t feel sad anymore because he wouldn’t see the face of his "useless" son! maybe Jin Bao still had some kindness left in his heart after all... he just didn’t notice it. After a few years of experiencing the spirit-world and some fortuitous-encounters Jin found his right path in soul-cultivation after the journey he took the drowned-realm before the age-restriction prevented him forever from entering that trial. Jin Bao returned home like a completely different man... he found his father no longer alive after a decade of heavy drinking and no-one to take care of him he passed-away in his sleep one night and was later found by the neighbors who dumped the thin-body into some hole and close it. Their distant-relatives took the house of Jin’s family after bribing some city-official and he discovered that beside memories... he has nothing else in that city! but unfortunately there’s a few happy memories and a lot of the sad ones. With his new power... Jin Bao ended-up mercilessly and coldly massacring the entire sect of the man who raped his sister in a single night to avenge his family. The formations of the sect couldn’t stop Jin Bao who’s both a formation-expert and a soul-cultivator... and after he wrested control over the sect-formations he waited until the moment where that sect had an event to celebrate the longevity of one of the sect-ancestors. Jin Bao closed the formations and locked every sect-member within their sect and enjoyed the sight of the blood-moon above during the night when he sacrificed all these people for the souls of his parents and innocent little-sister.

That deed was enough for this soul-cultivator to be declared as a new powerhouse from the younger-generation and once the background of this grudge was revealed to the higher-ups of this world which are the ruling-sects and factions... nobody judged young Jin Bao as an advocate of evil or being in the wrong because he had just reason and might makes right. Later... Jin Bao decided to join the mercenary-guild after receiving the different invitations from the factions which wished to recruit him and soon after he met "Yi Shirong" that man was a talented spirit-cultivator who had the natural affinity for wind and lightning. His personality was a very likable one because Yi would always be smiling amiably all the time and always interacting with everyone extremely politely... when Jin Bao found the strange ring in the drowned-realm later in his second entrance nobody witnessed it except for Yi Shirong and the man was quickly disinterested in the beginning once he found that the ring is only an ordinary bronze-ring which is just old and durable for some reason. Clearly the man was more interested in the broken white-jade within the miniature water-formation and seemed very disappointed that he couldn’t break the formation to take it... after exiting the drowned-realm Yi Shirong left the south-branch of the mercenary-guild and went towards the north-branch under the excuse of being in a desperate need for some ingredients specifically located within the northern-continent and by some weird chance and great luck. Some missions which Yi Shirong can easily finish with minimum effort appeared on the north-branch’s mission-board and the man which has been Jin Bao’s best and probably only "friend" left for a few years... then returned somewhat different but Jin Bao couldn’t get a feel of what really changed within his friend. Until during a certain mission together with Yi Shirong when he asked Jin Bao... especially when his best-friend smiled all the same when he heard from him how it turned-out to be nothing but an ordinary gold-ring! there within that smile was a faint threat which made Jin Bao shudder internally for an unknown reason but he buried these emotions because he isn’t the same weak and naive kid who used to live in the small city anymore. In the end his intuition was indeed true when Yi sneak-attacked Jin and almost succeeded in killing him... if it weren’t for Jin’s small-success in soul-cultivation a few months earlier which allowed him to quickly remove the muddling-effect of that golden-mirror on his soul-force plus the sense of threat which he felt previously from Yi Shirong who held it in his hand and let its light shine on his friend. Then Jin would’ve probably fell right then and there under his best-friend’s scheme. Bloodied and mortally-wounded... Jin Bao instantly used his all means and struggled while unhesitatingly sacrificing all of his trump-cards until he successfully escaped towards the territories of the land of forgetfulness. There Jin succeeded in hiding the mysterious-ring which contains a tiny part of his soul from this former best-friend and current sworn-enemy number-one... before Yi Shirong caught-up and finished the job with unexpected ruthlessness and lack of emotions! “Why?” Jin Bao asked in a weak tune of voice while trying to support his injured-body against the rocks of a mountain-wall deep inside the territories of beasts in the land of forgetfulness! after a mad rush without any regard for his well-being and countless fights with the beasts... this soul-demon has already reached the end of the road at that point and couldn't fight anymore. “Give me the ring... the fourteenth-pope of the church of light promised any kind of reward for it. No hard feelings Jin, you just rest here... forever.” Before the cold blade of Yi Shirong decapitated Jin’s physical-body... that was the last thing Yi apathetically said before his blade which is covered in law-energy that was so pure to the degree of almost reaching energy in the dao-rank swiftly extinguished the soul-force within Jin Bao’s vessel of flesh. Lightning-energy has a natural restriction against soul-force and extremely-pure energy of lightning can evaporate soul-force. The rest of Jin Bao’s memories was how the ring changed hands between people almost a few dozen of times before it was found by Lin's first... "neighbor" who in-turn parted ways with the ring after getting blasted by an arrow which came from his own brother "Tai" then this neighbor actually fought against the big-bird! which then spat-out the man from an incredible height after actually failing to eat him... then later said bird actually ended-up being eaten by the people from Lin's village. While sitting there looking at the great and huge area which is currently covered in his soul-force within this soul-world... the boy's silver-tears which were trickling from his third-eye terribly-grieved the unfortunate events of Jin Bao's life! after learning the ups and downs which the soul-cultivator experienced it worked on strengthening the convictions and intentions of great-sage Lin even further. Now he’s willing a thousand-times more to defy his previous ways of life and moral-conducts to avenge Jin Bao personally by himself... only if the trapped-cultivator turned-out to be actually dead. Somehow... Lin is hoping for Jin Bao to be alive so that he wouldn't need to cross that line for his sake. But a promise is a promise and the boy wouldn’t accept a third option on this issue... either Jin Bao lives and he gets to deal with his own troubles after Lin accomplishes his task of collecting the ingredients or... Jin Bao dies and Lin has to tie that loose-end and with his hands he ends the life of Yi Shirong after finding him.

After removing his awareness from the soul-world... great-sage Lin opened his eyes for the first time in days and sent his ability of soul-sense out to the absolute limit of its maximum-range. But what Lin revealed on his face was utter-shock and amazement after seeing the results! the boy expected a much wider range of soul-sense because within his soul-world the domain of light has already grew by almost three-folds if compared with his domain before receiving the attack from Mia. Even great-sage Lin couldn't believe how far can his soul-sense extend right now... fifty kilometers range of soul-sense. Not only is the range of his soul-sense much further than before by... a lot and more to spare! but also... his soul-vision maintained the microscopic-option in its view without Lin having to actively minimize the range of his soul-sense. With such a monstrously-wide range of soul-sense... the boy has no fear whatsoever in using his spirit-wings right now. Which is much to his relief since the problem of leaving this island isn’t going to be one of his worries any longer.

“You're bored huh!... but you did good watching over me buddy,” Seeing Sun crouching nearby him and yawning lazily yet constantly keeping his eyes on every bird that flew near their camp... Lin jumped on the back of the red-tiger and said while rubbing its red fur roughly backwards. Seeing how his buddy squinted while nodding repeatedly since he likes being massaged in this exact motion... the boy smiled and continued to say patting the head of his tiger : “Let's go down and catch some food before we leave... I have a feeling that we can't afford to stay here anymore.” great-sage Lin found his tamed-beast agreeing unhesitatingly when it heard him. Because Sun tried to go and catch something to eat yesterday while Lin meditated after it chased-away the birds in the area... but down there the red-tiger found enemies which it couldn't fight without leaving the safety of the shallow water! surprisingly the smaller creatures and the dumb ones were gone from the shallow territories around the island. Not taking the risk of venturing deeper in the ocean-water... Sun had to go back with empty fangs and paws before the stupid birds returned. Otherwise they might harass his buddy while he gathered that calming energy. After all... the water isn't the best environment for the red-tiger to unleash his powers. Not to mention that Sun’s affinity for fire was suppressed in the water anyway and he had to use his bare-teeth and claws to kill his enemies before! and the red-tiger felt like eating these blue-cores would make it weaker instead that’s why it felt disgusted after finding them in the heads of its prey and refused to eat any of the three cores which it found. After exiting the land of forgetfulness... Sun found himself able to use fire to coat his claws which made them even more deadly. Of course the sneaky-tiger kept it a secret from its best-friend and is planning to surprise Lin with it later. The boy shrunk his soul-sense into the range of only one kilometer from the previous maximum-range of fifty kilometers and was stunned to find that he could move a rock which weighs about fifty kilograms! with a single one of his thoughts great-sage Lin actually achieved telekinesis and he really wished if Lily was around so that he can brag about this amazing breakthrough which many scientists from his previous-life hoped to discover a method to actually achieve psycho-kinesis.

While Sun carried him on his back and agilely descended the cliff-wall... Lin hurled a tipped-stone at a monstrous-looking fish which was lurking ten meters below the surface of the water and two hundred and thirty meters away from the beach. The red-tiger instantly froze-up in fear and looked around for a few seconds then towards the boy to confirm if it was indeed its buddy who caused that projectile—which isn’t much different from a missile... if missiles are being made of stone these days—to fly towards this dead fish which is floating on the surface of the water with stone fragments lodged on its side.

“Hehe... how do you like my new powers buddy?... neat huh!...” Great-sage Lin patted the head of his tamed-beast and gave it a smile to ease its tension but if Lily was around then she would’ve made fun of her twin-brother because that smug on his face was demanding others to rain praise on Lin... the more the merrier. Sun was ecstatic and rewarded the boy with a wet-lick from his barbed-tongue... then the red-tiger quickly descended towards the shore below and entered the deep-water carelessly and swam fearlessly towards the location of the dead fish! it has no more fear whatsoever from the ones in the deep water because the tamed-beast is extremely confident in great-sage Lin’s abilities and that he could carry it to safety at the first sign of danger. That made Sun release some frustrations on these cocky assholes who live in water and always tried to drag him away from the safety of the shorelines.

“Sun!... come buddy, it's time to go.” Lin activated his wings and beckoned for the tiger to transform and change shape into its kitten-form.

“Meow!...” Sun seemed really happy since he’s no longer required to keep the tiger-form which exhausts a bigger amount of energy from his demonic-core.

While hugging the yellow-kitten towards his chest and tickling its neck and head... the boy ascended higher towards the sky and flew south after leaving the air-space of the island which is surrounded by different creatures of many sizes and have red and bloody-water surrounding its shores. The speed of his flight is noticeably slower than before because these white-wings are obviously much weaker than the yellow-wings... but great-Lin immediately noticed that his control over these pair of wings is vastly better and much easier! maybe that’s caused by the insane upgrade to his soul-force... maybe that’s because he’s using a version of his spirit-wings which is much weaker... but whatever the reason might be... Lin is currently familiarized himself with these pair of white-wings and slowly but surely is removing his restrictions of soul-force on these spirit-wings gradually and patiently. Finally Lin ended-up actually freeing his pair of white-wings from the restrictions of his soul-force completely and their maximum-speed was revealed entirely... but the boy had to protect his body while they flew with a layer of his soul-force that shielded him and Sun from air-pressure before actually breaking the sound-barrier. After flying for about eight hours... great-sage Lin met the second island and unlike the earlier one which is more than ten-thousand kilometers away this island is a lot more barren because it’s lacking in vegetation and life around its shores. Sun eagerly left him to explore the island once they landed and Lin quickly crossed his legs to spirit-cultivate his light-energy. Honestly... the boy could've used the advanced space-talisman to head directly towards the southern-continent instead of wasting these hours to fly to this island. But great-sage Lin wanted to do that when he's in tip-top shape and form! better yet if Lin is able to conclude the matter of affirming Jin Bao's current state and condition. Since it would be a great waste if the boy used the space-talisman to move south then find that Jin Bao is no more or to head north seeking revenge only to find that the trapped-cultivator is alive and kicking.

After shaking away these distractions... Lin spread-out his soul-sense to the absolute limit of its maximum-range to communicate with the surrounding strands of light-energy then opened the doors of his dantian to welcome all types and kinds of the element of light. But the sight of the interior of his dantian is completely different from how great-sage Lin left it! the dark-gold clouds which were more than a few dozen when he last left the dantian-space is currently... none. Because there’s not a single dark-gold cloud at all. What about gold-clouds then? same answer... none. How many left of the yellow-clouds?... only two remaining and these two clouds were chasing the white-clouds like a pair of starving wolves hunting a great flock of white sheep! these two yellow-clouds kept consuming any white-cloud which carelessly fell-behind the white-sea of clouds which resumed its turmoil and turbulent-fleeing. White-clouds were panic-running all over the dantian-space from the yellow-clouds and their only safety from the bullying-duo is in the feathers of Lin's spirit-wings... however the pair of white-wings was consuming whatever it wanted from the light-energy whenever it wanted. The boy noticed how the white-feathers started to upgrade from the white-color and gain a faint yellowish-color on a random-feather whenever it happened. Any strand of light-energy entering the dantian-space is attracted towards the spirit-wings first before getting released to roam freely inside the dantian. At once great-sage Lin noticed the difference between before and after these strands of light-energy got attracted towards his martial-spirit.

The light-energy would be unresponsive to his attempts to control and manipulate them before actually touching his spirit-wings... however after the pair of wings released these clouds they would respond to Lin’s every command! even if he made other clouds consume them... these clouds would obediently allow themselves to be consumed. “My martial-spirit is branding them with some kind of a unique mark first... and that can be considered some sort of stage of basic-refinement, I see now why the prime-light technique repeatedly warned in its instructions against blindly storing light-energy without refining it first.” Lin muttered faintly then controlled his attraction-speed of the light-energy from the surrounding environment to go side by side with the speed of his spirit-wings which meticulously processed each strand of light-energy once it entered the dantian-space... the white-clouds were the easiest to brand and the fastest type of light-energy to be released from the company of the boy’s spirit-wings! and the higher the rank and grade of the light-element is... the more likely these clouds are going to take longer and longer to be branded. However... this new addition of light-energy which comes in various purities, strength, and color... made the two-tyrants of Lin's dantian from before this mass-recruit of light-energy—which are the two yellow-clouds—who suddenly were met with lots of light-energy clouds of higher purity and rank... it made the pair of yellow-clouds extremely careful not to get swallowed by any of the stronger clouds! be those a slightly stronger yellow-clouds and gold-clouds or the much stronger dark-gold clouds. These pair of yellow-clouds just diligently chased the weakest white-clouds... the boy watched these two yellow-clouds which unlike their fellow clouds of the same yellow-rank who naturally acted like minions to the gold-clouds. Because these two clouds maintained their independence despite the ongoing change and cautiously hunted more of the white-clouds! great-sage Lin felt amused after studying the strange and uncommon-behavior of these yellow-clouds and actively helped them by sending white-clouds in their way. Lin watched with fascination how the yellow-clouds grew stronger... from being clouds of the yellow-rank these two finally advanced to the gold-rank and once the upgrade happened these two golden-clouds buzzed once in what would seem as a gesture of being excited or some sort of a call or summoning because it dragged some of the yellow-clouds towards themselves wherever they moved and these yellow-clouds would usually be accompanied by some white-clouds. However these two golden-clouds didn't become satisfied with their achievement or dare be tardy like the other gold-clouds within the dantian-space... both of them began to consume their followers! obviously aiming to rise to the next light-rank and become dark-gold clouds and the two clouds achieved the final upgrade in the exact same time. From the boy’s perspective... that was such a strange coincidence because these two dark-gold clouds seemed like two intelligent creatures in a race. Not only did they compete between themselves but also these two clouds seemed to... enjoy the competition. Unlike the other dark-gold clouds which just arrived and didn't seem to know the rules of this dantian-space... these two dark-gold clouds quickly occupied the closest orbit-trajectory near the spirit-wings of great-sage Lin. When both dark-gold clouds settled in a comfortable orbit... they both willingly and without hesitation sent some of their pure light-energy in some sort of a tribute to the pair of wings then orbited them peacefully in a slow circle! but each cloud maintained a safe distance from the other and didn’t cross-paths with one another. However... these two dark-gold clouds didn’t hesitate once in clashing with other dark-gold clouds from the new arrivals if they dared bar their path.

“Indeed!... like I expected before, they’re quite smart,” Lin commented on the two clouds, “Being close to my spirit-wings enables them to take the first-pick and bite on or recruit whatever light-energy after my martial-spirit brands them with its special mark.” The boy saw these two dark-gold clouds devour countless clouds from the dantian and grow stronger while constantly giving and sending to his spirit-wings an endless-stream of light-energy which made its feathers change quickly into the yellow-color one by one... whatever clouds of light-energy which these two clouds didn't directly devour would be forced to orbit them instead. In the end... the result after a while of spirit-cultivation was the consumption of the independent and dependent clouds outside of the circles of these two dark-gold clouds! gradually the disorder vanished until finally the dantian-space of great-sage Lin's had his pair of wings remaining in the central-spot of the dantian and only two dark-gold clouds left within the dantian-space. These two leaders were orbiting the wings seemingly with endless-passion while being accompanied by their followers... be those followers of the gold, yellow, or white-colored clouds. Two great nebulas of light-energy constantly grew larger and stronger by the second! but these two dark-gold clouds were too smart because they made sure to maintain their dominance over their followers by always willingly offering their tribute of the purest kind of light-energy to the spirit-wings. Which won them the help of the pair of wings in return because Lin’s martial-spirit would assist them by suppressing any gold-cloud whenever one ascended to a similarly dark-gold rank and attempted to rebel against the two. The spirit-wings would directly consume the dark-gold troublemaker and the two dark-gold rivals would split the followers between themselves! the boy sighed in relief when the final feather of his wings returned to its original yellow-color and muttered : “Should I help these two feathers return to their original gold-color?” Lin deliberated the matter for a second then decided not to intervene when he saw the dark-gold clouds automatically working and sending the largest amount of refined and pure light-energy to his martial-spirit. Just like he assumed... the intent of these two dark-gold clouds was revealed later when both of them resumed sending more light-energy to strengthen these two feathers which carry the symbols. “But the light-energy which is required to make these two feathers regain their gold-color again is so huge! it must be because of the two symbols... it has to be, otherwise... these two feathers should be already dark-gold in color by now. According to my calculations... I believe I’m not far off from the right answer, but if so... then why’s the left-feather requiring similar amount of light-energy? it already has no relation to spirit-energy and its symbol of infinity is entirely oriented around the aspect of soul! is my knowledge faulted or somehow lacking? this really needs further information, I'm acting like a blind person in some foreign environment. I never thought spirit-cultivation would make me like this from the very beginning, how I miss your advices and uptight answers right now... old Jin.” The boy sighed in regret and watched the two yellow-feathers gain a shade of the gold-color gradually whenever they received the tribute of light-energy from the two dark-gold clouds... then the symbol of wings itself which is on the feather of the right-wing took the longest time to return to its original color which is dark-gold. After that feat was accomplished... all of the light-energy which the spirit-wings received was being redirected towards the rest of the feathers on the wings which cause lines of the gold-color to randomly appear on the yellow-feathers.

According to the instructions of the prime-light technique... great-sage Lin understands that the martial-spirit itself should be soaked with as much light-energy as possible before he even thinks of beginning to purify the light-energy he accumulated spirit. Of course that doesn’t mean that he can’t ignore that step all-together! because even the step of purifying the light-energy can be skipped if Lin wants to directly attempt to unblock one of the major-meridians... but simplifying that reckless action would be seeking the small-gain quickly like a shortsighted-moron who sacrifices the huge-gain which is certain to keep on coming on the long-term in exchange. The huge loss and the possible termination of potential will at least cause a big delay of future advancements... probably would make them impossible. That’s why only once the martial-spirit is fully-nourished by light-energy should the boy actively intervene and manually focus on raising the purity of his energy-tank of light-energy... what follows after that step is a single-minded process which begins with unblocking a major-meridian then fortifying the meridian-walls and doing the same to any sub-meridian, minor-meridian, and meridian-branch. But honestly great-sage Lin was shocked by the ability of his pair of wings to swallow light-energy! hours passed already yet his martial-spirit is taking its bloody time which is much to Lin's dissatisfaction and irritation... finally the boy found himself facing two hard choices. Either patiently wait until his spirit-wings are finished soaking in all this light-energy or... great-sage Lin just stops this session of spirit-cultivation prematurely and turn his focus towards meditating on soul-cultivation instead.

Lin wants to reach the soul-clone realm first before having to use the advanced space-talisman... because if Jin Bao is somehow alive. Then Lin would head towards pearl-harbor which is in the west-side of the southern-continent to search for the first medicinal-ingredient that could help the unfortunate-soul that has been trapped within the mysterious gold-ring... that ingredient is called "deep-sea’s water-pearl" and is a very famous and miraculous-medicine which is great for healing souls and an extremely rare type ingredient that’s only created by the "camouflage clam" that lives in the sea at the west-coast of the southern-continent. If Jin Bao is dead for a fact... then Lin wouldn't need to gather any of the five medicinal-ingredients and his destination will be the northern-continent directly or the center of the southern-continent instead and from there the boy can pay some of his spirit-crystals and use any teleportation-formation which is a service that the cultivation-alliance provides—according to what Mia said and some of Jin Bao’s memories—and from there he can head directly for mercenary-city in the northern-continent’s branch of the mercenary-guild to find Yi Shirong. Know yourself... know your enemy... and you shall forever remain undefeated! as long as great-sage Lin keeps taps on the person and hide his intentions well... then he’s sure in finding a chance to avenge old Jin eventually if he’s patient enough that is. After suppressing the countless eager-thoughts about what would happen once he unblocks his meridians... Lin stopped his spirit-cultivation and wished for a chance to be able to do both systems of cultivation simultaneously. Unfortunately... he couldn't and the boy’s accumulation of light-energy stopped when he stopped using his ability of soul-sense to attract more strands of the light-element from the surrounding environment.

“This is... somewhat frustrating really!... why does the martial-spirit just keep its hands in its pockets and watch from the sideline when I cultivate my soul-force? not only so... but also it demands the assistance of my soul-force whenever I’m cultivating my spirit-energy, it isn’t help at all, and doesn’t seem to contribute to the other systems of cultivation. Sigh... whatever. Maybe later after I unblock my first major-meridian I would get to see some benefitting-effects from having light-energy when I’m strengthening my physique... or something! it isn’t like I'm going to do so soon anyway, from the look of it... this frightening-appetite which my spirit-wings have for light-energy, is going to make it take a while until I reach that step.” Lin muttered begrudgingly then changed his approach and focused his awareness to follow the instructions of the soul-strengthening technique. Soul-cloning or the realm of "soul-shedding a clone" means severing the soul itself from one soul-body within the soul-world into two! approved by all soul-cultivators in being the second-most important step for true soul-cultivators after activating the third-eye... and the most painful stage of soul-cultivation without a shred of doubt. The realm of soul-seeking makes the soul-body actually materialize within the soul-world. The realm of soul-eye opens the third-eye and expands the light-domain of the soul-world with every increase of soul-force—which is in the boy's case it’s the lit-area above the smooth body of water and the golden-water below his soul-body which kept expanding whenever he gained soul-force—The realm of soul-clone would separate the soul-body into two soul-bodies!—which means better and finer control over his energies and techniques, plus higher possibilities to gain sudden enlightenments since it guarantees an increase in comprehensions-abilities, it makes it much easier to process information and to fluidly understand many of the foreign daos—Yes... doing so means hurting your primordial-soul temporarily. But the existence of two compatible soul-bodies within the same physique means the possibility of multitasking both soul-force and spirit-energy cultivation in the same time. Which makes it a solution that great-sageLin desperately needs and requires... that's why soul-cultivators are extremely fast in cultivating any system and are mostly extremely dangerous when they reached that clone-realm of their soul-cultivation. After all... just by using their soul-force any soul-cultivator in the realm of soul-clone is a freak who can face against a spirit-lord! if said soul-cultivator fused spirit-energy and soul-force then they can go head-to-head with spirit-kings if their spirit-cultivation is only in the spirit-master realm... while if their spirit-cultivation is in the spirit-tyrant realm then they could face a spirit-emperor in the lower stages under the condition that said spirit-emperor have the natural-affinity for only one of the five-elements of the basic-rank. If the soul-cultivator is in the spirit-lord realm... then by perfectly fusing soul-force and spirit-energy they can lock-horns and stand their ground against an emperor of the mid-grade! even if said emperor has the natural-affinity for any of the elements from the high-rank. Meanwhile if a soul-clone who’s a spirit-king as well fought an emperor of the high-grade... then the emperor which his attainment in the system of spirit-cultivation has reached the upper sub-realms and stages is bound to fail to suppress the dual-cultivator who’s a soul-clone and spirit-king and can perfectly fuse the energy from the two systems! even if the spirit-emperor which is of the peak-tier is blessed with the natural-affinity for one of the four elements from the superior-ranking. If a dual-cultivator who’s a soul-clone and a spirit-emperor met any kind of spirit-emperor whatsoever in combat someday... then the result in the end is always going to be in favor of the emperor who’s a dual-cultivator. Because such dual-cultivators not only can they fuse two types of energies perfectly—if they’re talented and perseverant enough—but also could constantly replenish their energies during the fight by allowing of their clones to do the task. That’s enough proof of how awesome soul-cultivators in the clone-realm are and how much of an advantage this system of cultivation gives its users... especially after a perfect-fusion happens between the two different systems of cultivation and that unique type of energy gets held by the dual-cultivator. There’s a mention of a perfect-fusion between three systems of cultivation which are soul-force, spirit-energy, and qi-vitality... but that’s only a legend which isn’t confirmed for a fact. Some even mention a fantasy about a perfect-fusion where weapon-intent is added into the mix of the previous three systems... while one theory about faith-strands which could be added to make it even more perfect and formidable energy-fusion! karma-strings and evil-eviction plus devil-incubation and demon-worshipping each has their unique type of energy within their systems which throws different options on the table of discussion whenever cultivators debated the vastness of the great-dao.

Simplifying the whole process of breaking through to the clone-realm... Lin has to compress his soul-force inside his soul-body—which already gained material-state within this soul-world—and since what is hard can be broken and what is tangible can be split apart. Then after his soul-force compresses to the limit within his soul-body the boy has to simply "will it" to happen... the great-sage has to intentionally cause his soul-body to begin to separate in two staring from the head all the way downwards to his pelvis! after momentary pain—which is utter bullshit because Lin already has some fragments of memories from Jin Bao's experience during that step... plus the fact that no kind of soul-pain is momentary or faint. Lin already experienced it once after all plus the fact that time doesn't function normally within the soul-world... these factors makes it seem somehow like a single second can be stretched and extended indefinitely!—great-sage Lin has to begin working on healing his two soul-bodies back into being whole again by soul-cultivating and accumulating soul-force. However the first gain Lin is going to receive is triple the amount of his previous range of soul-sense! plus easier accumulation and extra capacity for soul-force within his soul-world... instead of one soul-body the boy gets an extra soul-body within his soul-world. Since one plus one doesn’t mean two in the equation of how many soul-bodies you have within your vessel... then abilities, senses, speed of accumulation, awareness, comprehensions, intuition... all aspects receive and improvement. If one Lin which has attained the peak-perfection of the soul-eye realm can already extend his ability of soul-sense with the maximum-range of fifty kilometers... then in the beginnings of the soul-clone realm great-sage Lin can have two soul-bodies inside his soul-world and each one of them can do the same feat! not to mention that the amplification of both abilities of soul-sense can be layered on top of each other... which gives the range of the ability a boost and the soul-force would become more focused. That allows the ability of soul-sense to pry and look much deeper at the elements and environments which gives the boy the chance to gaze-upon the secrets of the dao and the workings of the laws of this world. That's why it’s easy for soul-cultivators in the clone-realm to reach the realm of spirit-grandmasters effortlessly... their keen soul-vision with the ability of soul-sense makes it child’s play for them to understand the ongoing-workings of the dao just by studying the elements everywhere around them. Most of those soul-cultivators who get stuck in the realm of spirit-grandmaster has either very bad talents on spirit-cultivation and no martial-spirit from the very beginning... or they’re too lazy to waste time on cultivating spirit-energy for whatever reason.

Feeling a shudder of fear overtaking him from the bottom of his toes all the way to the top of his head once Lin remembered his suffering and hesitated slightly once before grinding his teeth and willing his soul-body to begin splitting itself into two similar parts from the center-line of the scalp on-top of his head then downwards... his will severed his vertical and silver third-eye and the upper-part of his skull in half followed by the nose, mouth, chin, neck, chest, abdomen, and pelvis. The boy kept cursing and wailing for mercy but the spasms of shuddering-pain kept interrupting his thoughts! meanwhile the everlasting waves of agony constantly ate-away at whatever that remained of his sanity. Despite having tasted and experienced soul-pain before... great-sage Lin begged with honest and devoted heart for the sweetness of mercy from every supreme-entity in the books over and over but the flames of suffering ruthlessly roasted him over and over during this round-two of soul-torture from hell.

'This was... downright madness! I never ever want to undergo any of this shit again in my life, honestly death by fire was... much, much easier. Old Jin... from his memories, he really nailed that experience because if compared to how much I screamed, then that man only missed a cigar in his mouth and a glass of whisky in his hand to complete the picture of how cool he breezed-through the whole experience.' Lin thought while massaging his arms with two shivering hands to calm his anxiety after that dreadful-experience. But finally there’s two soul-bodies within his soul-world and each sul-body is missing a half... both halves gave each other a one-eyed look and a half-mouthed weak smile of relief! the boy became certain that he really succeeded in breaking-through to the clone-realm and both incomplete-clones gave the deepest inwardly sigh of relief in their life. First time great-sage Lin experienced soul-pain wasn't by choice at all which hit him while he wasn’t expecting... but this time he actually had to jump inside this ocean of torment by choice which is stupid and courageous in the same time in his honest opinion.

“Time to check on old Jin... please be alright, please let there be hope for the poor man.” Lin crossed his fingers and muttered faintly while exiting the soul-world with one half of his awareness—which can naturally be separated and isolated away from the other clone without affecting his thoughts and the connection between the two halves remains solid and the control over his physique didn’t seem affected at all—and made the gold-ring appear on his hand with a thought after leaving it hidden for years... the boy sent an endless stream of soul-force towards the gold-ring and made sure that the other soul-clone carefully withhold its soul-force within its soul-body and remain seated within the soul-world and soul-cultivate to heal itself back to a complete soul-body again.

“WHO... DARES TO DISTURB MY SLUMBER?... THOU... SHALL BE PUNISHED... THOU... SHALL SUFFER!” Lin felt a pure and thick sense of fear which is like never before... merely hearing these words seemed like they were about to explode his soul from within because they shook it from its foundations. It happened once great-sage Lin attempted to send his soul-force inside the gold-ring hoping to achieve some sort of soul-view or enter the soul-formation which Jin Bao once mentioned with some part of his soul! after hearing these words Lin felt suddenly faint and terribly dizzy which is almost a hairbreadth away from getting knocked-out and falling completely unconscious.

“What!... the fuck did I do this time? ughh...” The boy opened his eyes wide and muttered faintly while pressing the area of his temple with both palms very hard to ease this enormous-headache which followed hearing the previous words by a wave of buzzing-noise... the great-sage felt like it will split his skull in half. Through his fuzzy vision... Lin saw Sun crouching nearby him... no scratch that!... the boy saw the red-tiger groveling at the ground and it trembled like a shaking leaf in the middle of a great-storm from fear. Yes... because just like great-sage Lin his tamed-beast was feeling utterly helpless in the face of this terrible and formidable threat which appeared seemingly out of nowhere... and frightened the living daylight of the two of them.

“Prime-light technique... hmmm, tsk, it’s incomplete though... guiding-light physique yet it’s untapped whatsoever, soul-clones, meh... they’re still hobbling on one leg, somewhat passable vitality for an all-rounder... but what a waste of a good bloodline, glass-heart but it’s devoid of intent... just another brat smelling of his mother’s tits with some potential and no backbone. Whatever... little one, your aura of faith is the confusing thing about you, answer me boy... who are you? and why did you disturb my slumber?” Lin disappeared from in front of Sun... to be exact he was taken and instantly relocated somewhere else and the words the boy heard... some of them were understood and some of them he guessed but some were completely confusing. By the time he noticed the change of the environment around him... great-sage Lin found himself standing in front of a raccoon which stood one meter tall and pointed one finger at his nose in an arrogant and extremely provocative-gesture while it spoke! this raccoon spoke lazily while having the most annoying smug on its face which revealed a sneering-expression that just begged for a short-hook to its delicate-jaw... but the alarm-bells which his intuition never stopped ringing gave Lin a clear idea of how dangerous this cocky-raccoon can be. Not to mention that this talking-raccoon!... just dissected the boy's deepest and newest secrets with its words and even the matter of the second heart from his dreams was mentioned by it. That guiding-light physique and faith-aura however... great-sage Lin really wanted to ask about them for further details but that formidable talking-raccoon seems to be in a... very bad mood right now. “This one is Lin... son of Tai the mighty and Tian the beauty, it’s a pleasure meeting you.” Quick to answer after a lightning-quick process of these strange circumstances and unbelievable encounter... Lin bowed politely while answering then straightened his waist and his pair of gold-pupils within his eye-sockets took-in the scenery around him in a fleeting and quick cursory side-glance. But the boy was amazed by the fact of how was he just transported from a barren-island which is in the middle of the ocean to this strange forest which has gigantic trees everywhere. “Such a stupid kid!... I already asked you before didn’t I? why did you disturb me? Lin... son of Tai and Tian.” After squinting its pair of wide black eyes... the raccoon asked again. Only this time... it kept tapping the tip of great-sage Lin’s nose a few times provocatively with its gleaming sharp claw which extends from the end of its long and thin finger. But Lin honestly felt hurt because this talking-raccoon called him stupid more than how it’s bullying him... clearly it’s doing so right now. Getting bullied by a raccoon is nasty... but a talking-raccoon could instantly touch a sensitive-nerve. “Excuse my ignorance... but I don't actually know when did I do that to be honest with you!” Lin awkwardly asked but the boy was expecting a few more nose-pokes from that talking-raccoon when he gave that answer.