37 Chapter 37
Chapter 37 — Heaven Dou Imperial Academy (1)
Ning Chen settled down inside a cave and quickly created a campfire while setting up his camping gears. He sat besides the tent and took out the external spirit bone from his spatial ring.
The external spirit bone glowed brightly after he infused his spirit power into it. The spirit bone slowly melted and turned into blue metallic liquid that entered his body.
Ning Chen then felt an excruciating splitting pain at his back and his body convulsed fiercely as a result.
"Arghh!" He screamed loudly and collapse to the ground with beads of sweat falling down his forehead.
His shirt suddenly started stretching back and forth behind him and it soon torn apart as an enormous wings grew out from his back.
He felt the pain slowly fading away after the wings got released and felt the shackles binding him breaking.
Ning Chen felt true freedom for the first time, but it was a fleeting moment. He instead just felt an unfamiliar limbs being added to his body.
He turned his head around and saw a large wing, resembling many steel sword wielded as one, spreading widely behind him.
The wings had a streamlined body that seemed to be created in durable steel painted in a deep blue color and it was also sharp like a sword.
Ning Chen started examining his strange wings and then began practicing on using it. He spent a few weeks to finally perfectly control his new wings.
This external spirit bone was named simply as Sword Wings.
He could release and recall the sword wings instantly. It also allowed him to have the ability to fly, but flying would continuesly consumed his spirit power.
The sword wings was also an effective way to defend himself from attack. It was able to block and deflect attack by covering Ning Chen's whole body.
He was as well able to infuse the sword wings with his sword intent and he thought it was a perfect combination with the earth stance.
Since Ning Chen had already completed training with the sword wings, he decided on completing the breathing technique.
...
He was able to complete the true breathing technique after spending his whole month devoted on completing it.
It wasn't too difficult since his affinity with the natural energy had rose dramatically.
Ning Chen was currently sitting next to the campfire and enjoying it's warmth. He then sat in a meditation pose and closed his eyes.
He started to breath in a complex pattern with his spiritual force spreading everywhere to his surroundings.
Ning Chen's strange breathings and spiritual force seemed to have seduced the natural energy from the surroundings, causing it all to slowly flow toward him.
The natural energy slowly entered his mouth, nose and pores under the guidance of his breathings and spiritual force.
The natural energy gathered into his blood channels and soon started spreading throughout the entirety of his whole body.
His cells, muscles, bones, organs — his whole body was growing stronger ever so slightly under the tempering of the natural energy.
Ning Chen's lifespan and ability to adapt to things like intense pressure and extreme environment were slowly rising as a result of his cells being tempered.
He then felt something being stimulated inside his blood channels under the influence of natural energy.
Ning Chen used his spiritual force to activate inner sight and saw there was a red energy, very different from spirit power, floating inside his blood channels.
The red energy appeared strange and arcane — having four unique faint lusters covering it's surface.
There were also an abundant amount of that red energy inside his body that became extremely active after being awakened by the natural energy.
All of the red energy slowly gathered toward his blood channels and circulating inside it.
Ning Chen thought this red energy was his blood essence, but decided to call it as vigor.
The vigor, was something different from spirit power. It was born from his cells and life energy, his bloodline.
Ning Chen already have a vast amount of vigor because of his abnormally strong physique, but it was all hidden and couldn't be used before.
However, it was now different since the vigor had already awakened.
Ning Chen experimented with his vigor for a while and was able to guess how this energy works.
His vigor energy could be use as a way to accelerate his healing speed and also a substitute medium for activating his spirit rings.
The amount of Ning Chen's vigor also depended on his physique and it can be regenerated quickly by consuming high-energy meat and natural energy.
It's quality and concentration level on the other hand would only rise whenever he acquired a new color dragon spirit ring.
There was also another way to raise it's level through the use of natural energy, but it's effect was slower.
Still, it was better than nothing.
Since the vigor could now be also use to activate his various spirit abilities, Ning Chen felt he didn't have to worry much about his spirit power consumption now.
After completing the true breathing technique his master had failed before, Ning Chen was ecstatic.
He couldn't wait to show his achievement, but for some reason, he suddenly felt empty...
Ning Chen shook his head to get rid of that emptiness and decided to focus on improving his sword techniques.
He forgot everything about the outside world as he devoted on improving himself.
Ning Chen didn't knew he had spent another month inside Extreme North, but as a result, he was able to learn things about his sword intent, instinct awakening and improving his sword art.
The original colorless sword intent didn't have many uses apart from making his sword extremely sharp and increasing it's attack power.
However, if he activated red dragon power and the colorless sword intent at the same time, it would change into flame sword intent.
His sword didn't grew extremely sharp, but instead transformed into a flowing flame like blade that wanted to reduce everything into ashes.
The power of the flame sword intent also depended on Ning Chen's resistance to fire.
His red dragon power's current fire resistance was at 70% and as a result, the flames he could produce was incredibly hot with the support from world.
Now, the stronger his elemental resistance, the stronger his sword intent.
Ning Chen was now wanting to know of a way to somehow increase his spirit rings age since it was one of the easiest methods to increase his elemental resistance.
At the same time, he also realized creating sword intent also used a lot of spirit power.
Fortunately, Ning Chen had now the ability to control his vast vigor. He could now focus on using spirit power to activate spirit bone's abilities and produce sword intent.
He would use vigor to either activate his spirit rings, spirit bones, and heal faster.
Just like sword intent, Ning Chen managed to also learn many things about instinct awakening.
His instinct awakening — Dragon Force, would stimulate and draw out the power of his bloodline.
Ning Chen thought this was the same case for the other people who possessed instinct awakening.
Entering the instinct state would allow him to concentrate and focus to the limit, allowing him to perceive things slower and unleash his combat prowess to it's fullest and best capabilities
It also sharpened his already detailed senses, making him one step closer to mastering intuition and gave him the battle instincts of dragons.
This was the reason for his eyes turning draconian.
Ning Chen then started adding sword intent and instinct awakening to his Dawn Sword Art and began improving it.
The whole four stances were now revised and appeared to become entirely different.
The first stance was now called 'Flame Stance: Reduce All Creation To Ash'.
Ning Chen would cover his sword completely in crimson flames that wanted to turn everything into ashes.
It was also the stance that focused on pure destructive power and its main aspect was still about sword drawing.
The second stance was now 'Wind Stance: Scattering Wind Blossoms'.
His sword will be enveloped in dense green winds of calmness and madness. He would also scatter into many green blossoms to attack his opponents.
It was a stance that focused on being unpredictable, swift speed, and obscure movements.
The third stance was now 'Earth Stance: Guardian Domain'.
Ning Chen's heavy, wide sword would be covered in rocks and brown light. His body and sword being supported by the boundless earth.
It was a stance that focused on defending everything and receiving attack for vengeance.
The fourth new stance was called 'Ice Stance: Sit Upon The Frozen Heavens'.
It was a stance focused on controlling the opponent from a long and short distance.
Ning Chen can summon an enormous dragon made out of ice using the ice sword intent and control it easily with his spirit control.
This ice dragon was built like an eastern dragon and can dull his opponents reaction time, slowing down their movement and energy circulation to delay them from using their abilities.
Ning Chen had thought of combining some stances, but stopped in the end without hesitation.
The reason was because it was utterly ridiculously hard!
He decided to do the combination in the future.
Ning Chen had now completely done everything he planned and decided it was finally time to leaves.
...
Ning Chen managed to return back to the clan after travelling for weeks.
His mother was incredibly happy to see him again and glad to see him looking okay.
Ning Chen also felt happy and decided to not tell them that he had almost died.
He then went toward his father and asked him about his enrollment at the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy.
Ning Fengzhi hugged Ning Chen briefly and comforted him by saying it all went okay.
Ning Chen was glad and quickly thanked his father. He then started to look around for his sister, but couldn't find her at all.
He asked his parents about Ning Rongrong whereabouts and then heard she ran away from the mansion.
Ning Chen was quickly shocked and worried, but then quickly heard what happened to his sister.
Ning Rongrong was bored and lonely at the mansion and decided to ran away to have her own fun.
Ning Chen smiled wryly hearing that, but continued to listen.
Ning Rongrong was doing alright outside and just a week ago enrolled at Shrek Academy which was supposed to only recruit monsters.
Ning Chen was intrigued, but felt that academy was just exaggerating to catch people's attention.
Anyhow, he decided to visit his sister when he have the time.
Ning Chen wanted to enter the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy right now. He rested at the clan for several days before heading toward the imperial academy.
He smirked while riding a carriage, feeling curious about what was awaiting him at the imperial academy.
...
I was watching a game called SOMA and I have to say it's amazing. My top fav game now.
sonny boy anime is also weirdly good.
