CHAPTER

41

Dark Soul

I

“Another useless one,” Hao Zhen murmured, setting aside the jade slip he was holding. In front of him was a pile of jade slips.

Not too far away from him, Lan Yue sat in front of the pile of pill flasks, currently holding a pill to her eye. Tian Jin sat a little further to the side, in front of the piles of magical artifacts and talismans, currently gazing intensely at the talisman he was holding.

Hao Zhen reached forward with his spiritual power, using it to float another jade slip from the pile into his hand. He then channelled spiritual power into the jade slip, and its contents appeared in his mind’s eye—a pill formula.

“Useful,” Hao Zhen murmured, cutting off the flow of spiritual power, before storing the jade slip in his spatial ring—or rather, his second spatial ring. Du Jian, the inner disciple, and the inner elder each had possessed one spatial ring, so they decided to split them evenly between themselves.

There was also a spatial ring on Protector Na’s corpse, but they had decided to leave it alone. Since they were already planning on turning in the corpse, they’d definitely come under suspicion if it didn’t have a spatial ring, considering Protector Na had been an eleventh-order redsoul. Moreover, it wasn’t as if they needed another spatial ring, in any case.

Hao Zhen picked up another jade slip, and upon visualizing its contents, blurry words and images appeared in his mind’s eye.

Finally—a cultivation method. Instead of moving on to the next jade slip, Hao Zhen spent some time trying to read the words, concentrating on them. Gradually, they started to become clearer.

That wasn’t happening fast enough, however. Shaking his head, Hao Zhen stored the jade slip in his new spatial ring, just in case Tian Jin and Lan Yue might be interested in the cultivation method it contained.

Although Hao Zhen’s affinity with the Drifting Moonlight Method was far from perfect, it was still much better than his affinity with the Blazing Light Method, so he no longer needed Tian Jin’s help to determine whether a cultivation method was suitable for him or not.

This was already the seventh cultivation method he had found in the pile, and so far, none of them had seemed more compatible with him than the Drifting Moonlight Method. Hao Zhen had also tried the cultivation methods in Protector Na’s spatial ring, but he didn’t find any of them suitable, either.

Hao Zhen wasn’t sure if he had gotten really lucky with the Drifting Moonlight, or if he was being really unlucky right now. He was leaning more towards the latter, considering his compatibility with the Drifting Moonlight Method wasn’t even that good. Then again, there was a chance his magical insight was so poor that he couldn’t find a method that suited him more than the Drifting Moonlight Method because he already had the highest affinity he could have with it.

Just like there were cultivators who had a high affinity with all cultivation methods, there were also cultivators on the opposite end of the spectrum, who had a low affinity with all cultivation methods. What this boiled down to was magical insight—a cultivator’s natural ability to comprehend magical things, such as cultivation methods and heavenly laws.

Magical insight was what determined a cultivator’s talent, though depending on what a cultivator wished to specialize in, other aspects were also taken into consideration. To alchemists, artificists, and inscriptists, general insight—a cultivator’s natural ability to learn things as a whole, magical or not—was just as important as magical insight. On the other hand, to cultivators who wanted to specialize in combat, combat aptitude was of utmost importance.

Tian Jin and Lan Yue, as far as he could tell, had extremely high magical and general insight and combat aptitude. On the other hand, Hao Zhen was pretty sure he was lacking in all three areas.

And that meant he’d have to do his best to keep up with them.

Without stopping, Hao Zhen floated another jade slip over to his hand.

One by one, he went through the pile in front of him until all the jade slips were either inside his second spatial ring or beside him.

Storing the last jade slip away—it contained a matrix formula, which Tian Jin would check later—Hao Zhen frowned. It hadn’t been nearly as fruitful a search as he had hoped. Although he had found dozens of pill, matrix, and schema formulas, none of the cultivation methods had resonated with him more than the Drifting Moonlight Method. He didn’t find any proof of Du Qing’s involvement, either.

Sighing, he glanced over at Lan Yue and Tian Jin and saw that they were both almost over with their own piles.

He hoped they had had better luck than him.

II

“So, in total…” Hao Zhen said. He was standing in front of their recently acquired possessions, his eyes on the four separate piles of pill flasks and bottles on the ground. Tian Jin and Lan Yue stood beside him, looking in the same direction. “We have a couple of fourth-order cultivation pills, dozens of third-order ones, and hundreds of second-order ones?” he said, glancing at Lan Yue, who had just spent the last hour checking each pill flask and bottle.

He and Tian Jin had helped, after Lan Yue gave them some brief instructions on how to roughly ascertain what exactly a pill did just by holding it. Cultivation pills, specifically, caused the cultivator’s spiritual power to become slightly agitated, and the degree of the agitation could be used to tell what the rank of the pill was.

“For the third time, yes,” she said, shooting him an annoyed look. Despite that, her eyes were glistening with anticipation.

“I know.” Hao Zhen cringed a little. “It’s just…” He swallowed.

Even though there weren’t any named cultivation pills on the pile, the number of common cultivation pills—and their ranks—more than made up for it.

When it came to cultivation pills, the difference between a named one and a common one was that a cultivator could fully absorb the spiritual energy inside a named one, whereas, when taking common pills, how much the cultivator could absorb depended on their usual absorption rate of spiritual energy. That, in turn, depended on their comprehension of their cultivation method.

For those with only a rudimentary grasp of their cultivation method, named cultivation pills were far more valuable than common ones—and such was Hao Zhen’s case. The Drifting Moonlight Method did suit him much more than the Blazing Light Method, but he was still nowhere close to achieving full comprehension of it.

Still, even if none of them weren’t named pills, with these cultivation pills, he should be able to… Hao Zhen glanced at Lan Yue, their resident alchemy expert. “What level do you think I can reach?”

She furrowed her brow. “Have you managed to reach the visualization stage of your cultivation method?”

“Just barely,” he said.

She nodded her head. “Then, with your absorption rate… The peak of the second level, maybe?” Although she phrased it like a question, she seemed fairly certain about it.

The third level. He had guessed it’d be enough to break through to the second level. He hadn’t expected so many of those pills would be cultivation ones, nor had he expected so many of them to be of such high ranks. “What about you two?”

She frowned, then glanced at Tian. The other boy appeared composed, but there was a certain tenseness to his face and in the way he held himself, arms crossed, back upright, head lowered.

“Most likely, the fourth level,” Lan Yue said.

The fourth level. The same level as the strongest inner disciples. The same level as Du Qing.

“And if we take Shimmering Light Pills later?”

Hao Zhen doubted any of the other outer disciples would be able to beat them in terms of score. And that was without taking into consideration the monster parts and magical plants from Du Jian and his underlings.

Lan Yue considered it for a moment, then said, “You should reach the peak of the third level. Tian Jin and I, the peak of the fourth.”

Hao Zhen inhaled sharply. The peak of the fourth level… In the grand scheme of things, that probably didn’t mean much. He was pretty certain that, eventually, Lan Yue and Tian Jin would both reach the Violet Spiritual Realm. If he hadn’t been certain of that before, the six violet spiritual skills inside their soul pretty much confirmed it.

Despite that, he couldn’t help but feel exhilarated at the idea of having peak fourth-level redsouls on his side—and of being a peak third-level redsoul himself. A month ago, prior to regaining his memories, he would have never imagined himself in such a position—with such prospects.

Hao Zhen slowly exhaled, clenching his fists.

He didn’t know what Lan Yue and Tian Jin had on their minds, though he had some ideas. On the other hand, he knew, clearly, what was running through his head.

And it was the realization that his choice back in the Gentle Green Valley had been the right one, after all.

III

Hao Zhen held the sword in his hand, looking it over. It was heavy—much heavier than the swords he had used so far, which had belonged to Ke Li—but not enough to stop him from being able to freely swing it around. If anything, the extra weight gave him the feeling that it was more solid, more durable—which was exactly the case, considering it was a fourth-order red-grade sword, whereas his other ones were all of the first order.

“What do you think?” Tian Jin asked. “If you don’t like it, you can take this one,” he said, holding up the sword he was holding—another fourth-order sword.

In the pile of magical weapons, Tian Jin had found two fourth-order swords and a single fifth-order one. As Tian Jin already had the Radiant Light Sword and Hao Zhen was still only a beginner at swordsmanship, the fifth-order one had gone to Lan Yue, whereas Tian Jin and Hao Zhen picked a sword each.

A named eleventh-order red-grade weapon would draw a lot of attention, so Hao Zhen figured it’d be better if Tian Jin only used it in emergencies. Tian Jin had agreed with him, so they decided that most of the time, Tian Jin would be using one of the two fourth-order swords instead.

“No, I like this one more,” Hao Zhen said, shaking his head. He had actually tested the sword Tian Jin was holding first. There wasn’t too much of a difference between them—they were both common magical artifacts, after all—but the one currently in Hao Zhen’s hand was slightly smaller than the one Tian Jin was holding, so he found it easier to use.

“If you’re sure,” Tian Jin said, shrugging, before storing his sword away in his spatial ring. Hao Zhen did the same.

Over the last few minutes, his new spatial ring had become considerably fuller. After Tian Jin had determined what each talisman did, they had split them equally between themselves, before doing the same thing with the magical artifacts. Unfortunately, they hadn’t found either a named talisman or a named artifact, but like with the pills, rank and quantity made up for it.

“Well, this should be about it, then,” Hao Zhen said, looking around. There weren’t any items left in the cave—no jade slips, magical artifacts, talismans, pills, or spiritual stones. They had finished dividing everything up between the three of them. He glanced at the waterfall, taking note of the absence of light passing through it. “It should already be dark outside, so should we just rest for today?”

The lack of visibility made hunting at night more dangerous, though he didn’t think that’d be much of a problem with Lan Yue’s illuminating jade strip. He just really didn’t feel like doing any more hunting or exploration today, after everything that had happened. He was pretty certain that today was the most eventful day he had ever had, taking into consideration both of his lives.

Lan Yue shrugged. “I don’t mind,” she said. Her spatial ring then flashed, and a cushion appeared behind her, on which she promptly sat down. Within moments, she had her eyes closed, her breathing becoming even as she immersed herself in meditation.

Hao Zhen glanced at Tian Jin, expecting the other boy to also be sitting down. Instead, he ended up locking gazes with Tian Jin, whom Hao Zhen now realized had been staring straight at him, his brow furrowed.

Hao Zhen raised an eyebrow, and Tian Jin glanced in Lan Yue’s direction and subtly shook his head. The other boy then produced a cushion of his own and sat down, before nodding at Hao Zhen, as if telling him to do the same.

Confused, Hao Zhen similarly sat down. Once he was sitting, Tian Jin closed his eyes without another word.

“There’s something I thought you should know,” Tian Jin’s voice suddenly rang right beside his ear. Hao Zhen started, glancing at Tian Jin’s hand, and caught the edge of a sound-transmission token.

Just as Hao Zhen was about to summon his own sound-transmission token to ask Tian Jin what was going on, the other boy’s lips started moving, and Hao Zhen paused, waiting. The next moment, he heard the sound transmission, “You mentioned that you were from another world, so I thought… that maybe your soul was different, somehow.”

Hao Zhen went still.

“And it wasn’t clear at first, but…” Across him, he saw the other boy slightly frowning. “Your soul is… slightly darker than mine. And Lan Yue’s. And that of everyone else I’ve ever seen. It’s still red, but… it’s a shade darker. The same goes for your spiritual power. It’s very subtle—if I wasn’t looking for something different, I wouldn’t have noticed it.” Tian Jin paused, then continued. “I don’t know what exactly that means, but… Well, I thought it might be important, but wasn’t sure if you’d want Lan Yue to know too.”

With that, Tian Jin stopped speaking, and the sound-transmission token he had been holding disappeared.

My soul is… darker? Hao Zhen frowned. But… He activated Spiritual Sight, then glanced at his arms—at the spiritual aura coating them. He then turned to Tian Jin and Lan Yue and checked both of their spiritual auras, before glancing back at his arm. He repeated this a couple more times, his frown growing deeper and deeper.

It was subtle—very subtle—but Tian Jin was right. His spiritual aura—and, by extension, his soul—was indeed darker than theirs.

Hao Zhen wasn’t quite sure what to think of that. It didn’t seem like Tian Jin knew what to make of it, either. And that wasn’t good, considering Tian Jin was pretty much his primary source of knowledge about everything related to cultivation and the magical side of the world.

What Hao Zhen did know was that now, he had yet another thing to look into.