23 Chapter 23

When the three cultivators saw that the beast began to move toward them, they quickly rearranged themselves.

"Both of you, behind me," Blunt shouted while he began to advance toward the lizard.

Before anything could even happen, Brigitte quickly knelt and, while whispering a few words, placed her hands on the ground, which caused her hands to begin to shine, while the ground under the lizard's feet began to shine too, before crumbling and trapping two of the beast's legs.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Blunt quickly took a few steps forward and threw a kick toward the lizard's right side. Because the crystals were mostly covering the back and head, his kick landed on a patch of almost non-existent crystal, which Blunt destroyed with his strength.

The hit was visibly effective, as the lizard released a painful grunt before straightening itself again while trying to free its legs. But before being able to do it, Aiden neared the right side of the lizard, and with a swift movement, he stabbed with his spear coated in energy at the same spot that was hit by Blunt's kick, managing to cause a deep wound near the beast's neck.

When the beast received Aiden's stab, its crystals began to darken a bit, and two seconds later, the lizard began to open its mouth, releasing a strange light-blue shine.

"Be careful, it's about to release something from its mouth!" Brigitte shouted to warn her companions.

At that moment, the lizard opened its mouth to release a lightning bolt that landed in the middle of Blunt's chest, making him fall back a few meters. Suddenly, white smoke began to leave Blunt's body as he grew bigger, and a few seconds later, he got up and dashed toward the beast.

Without a second thought, he grabbed the beast's neck with one of his arms and began to punch it in the face multiple times. Aiden saw this and stayed shocked for a second before coating its spear with energy again to stab it in the lizard's body before slashing towards the tail, cutting a lot of crystals and scales.

But suddenly, the ground below the lizard began to shine with great intensity, and in less than a second, three stone spears grew from the ground, impaling the lizard in multiple parts of its body and crushing the crystals on its back when the spears went through them.

The lizard let out a few snorts and grunts of pain before blood started dropping from its mouth when it became silent.

"That was interesting," Blunt said, smiling while slapping a few times on the lizard's head to make sure it was dead.

"It was more than interesting. Do you even realize what we just saw? " Brigitte asked excitedly while inspecting the lizard. "This thing was growing, it was evolving. Only a few people in history managed to see the breakthrough of a magical beast and live to tell the tale. We are lucky that we managed to kill it just after it evolved and it didn't know how to control its new body because it could be pretty dangerous otherwise... I need to write down everything! "

And without thinking even a second about it, she quickly took out of one of her bags a few paper scrolls and a feather pen and sat on the ground to write everything that happened.

Meanwhile, Blunt took out of his bag a few bandages and some medicine and treated the area where he was struck by the lightning as it was a little burnt.

As Aiden didn't have anything to do, he began to inspect the beast's body. His attention soon fell on the crystals on its back, as he sensed a source of energy in them.

Suddenly, he had an idea. Without losing even a second, he sat on the ground while holding one of those crystals, and began to cultivate while positioning the crystal in front of his abdomen. Soon after, he felt how he could easily absorb the energy inside the crystal with his dantian, and he began to cultivate at a high speed.

In less than two minutes, he felt that his dantian and sea of consciousness had grown a lot inside him while he felt as if his body was on fire.

Suddenly, a pain ran throughout his entire body while he felt his dantian and sea of consciousness begin to condense, losing the previously gained size. This sensation only lasted for a second, and when it was finally over, Aiden stopped cultivating immediately and found that the crystal had turned into grey dust.

He quickly got up to tell his companions about what he had just experienced, but when he got up, he noticed how everything looked different. Not only did his body feel lighter and the energy inside felt purer and easier to control, but he also felt how he could perceive and control the energy around him easily.

"Have I just had three breakthroughs at the same time? Aiden thought to himself, not believing what he had just done.

Aiden stood for a few seconds without saying anything before calling for his companions.

"Guys, you need to see this," Aiden said excitedly.

After that, both Blunt and Brigitte tried to cultivate using the crystals. And after seeing how the cultivation speed with them was much higher, they decided that it was time to return to the camp to secure the resources that they could obtain from the lizard. But before returning, they decided to spend a whole day cultivating using a few of the crystals so they could give a boost to their cultivation.

The journey toward the camp was safe and without any important events. After returning, each of them went towards their respective camps to tell the other cultivators about their discoveries.

"So, not only have you found a new material capable of greatly boosting someone's cultivation, but you also discovered that each one of the villages had their cultivation methods and managed unified them to create the definitive cultivation technique?" Galey asked with a disbelieving look on his face.

"Yes, we did," Aiden replied while smiling. "After this, we should start working as soon as possible with the other villages and learn everything that we can from them. I'm sure that is what the voice of heaven wanted, so maybe that should be our main goal."

"You are right, I will meet with the other villages to start planning everything," Galey replied seriously.

In the next few days, messengers were sent to the three villages to inform them about the situation, and soon after, negotiations began to occur. One of the first things was the official exchange of cultivation methods and information between the villages, so everyone would be able to create their complete cultivation technique.

After that, a few safe routes on the underground were created to help the trade between them, and the area around the archway was used to create a place of meeting between the villages.

As for the chosen, thanks to the boost they received in their cultivation and all the resources that were used on them later, they soon became the stronger cultivators of each village, and thanks to that, they also became the leaders of each town.

Thanks to all of this, the three villages began to grow like never before in size and number of cultivators.

To celebrate these events, three temples were built, one on each island, where everyone could go and pray to the Voice of the Heaven that guided the three chosen toward their fates and that watches over the protection of humanity.