Chapter 14 Development and 2nd ring

Chen Jin only returned to the hotel at night. He'd spent the rest of the day wandering, seeing the sights and seeing the general layout of the city. He'd passed through exited crowds, deserted alleys and crowded restaurants.

Chen Jin also e specifically searched for some points of notice, the Great Arena was rather hard to miss, it looked like a massive coliseum, he'd passed besides the entrance to Soto academy, saw the local Spirit Hall, it was a bit gaudy, it was obviously made to attract attention.

He'd also seen the Rose Hotel, it was predictably close to the red lights district. How Tang San and Xiao Wu missed the fact that it was a love hotel was a mystery to him.

Chen Jin also stumbled upon Flenders shop, only that miser would put Spirit Halls third level symbol in such a dingy shop. It was closed though, even if it wasn't he wouldn't have entered, he was way to young to have any idea about the Golden Triangle, much less know approximately what they look like.

Chen Jin didn't actually have to ask around much for Shrek academy's location, nearly everyone seemed to know, though the few spirit masters that he asked while outside the great arena thought of it like a bit of a joke, even if they weren't willing to actually say it, or even allude to it, everyone there was at least an emperor after all.

The last recruiting day had been seven months ago, so there was still time until the next, it was around a month after the time when the Spirit Hall annually awakened everyone's spirits. He very much doubted that they would refuse him though, they did recruit Oscar and Ma Hongjun a lot earlier that twelve.

Besides, after mulling about it for a while he decided to let them know that he awakened earlier, though not how he got his spirit rings. He'd have to wait until he got his second before going. Hardly an inconvenience.

He lied down on the bed and let his spirit ring out, in front of him. It was a bit yellower than before, obviously the colour was a bit deeper, another problem that he had to solve, the changing of colours of his rings.

Chen Jin started to think about it as soon as he knew that it had the ability to do so.

He had a pensive expression as he looked at his ring, its colour soft, and movements soothing.

His awareness of his ring was great, extremely so, he didn't know if it was like that with everyone or a special characteristic of condensed spirit rings, but as it got stronger and the colour changed he could feel it, how it did it and the differences. With a bit more time Chen Jin thought that he could make it so that it's colour changed to one it had previously, instead of the real one.

He needed more time to see its changes though.

He let himself fall in a meditative trance, he could finally do it while laying down, as he thought about his current and future rings.

Different from normal people he could actually somewhat choose his skill, so he wanted to make sure they synergised to the maximum level possible before trying to get another.

Chen Jin had also started to have his own ideas on their skills, his first was a passive support skill, with no improvement to his current combat strength but immense potential, it helped lay the foundation for his future improvement, from speed of cultivation to self created spirit skills and from there to his comprehension of the world around him.

It was a lot better that a special attack, that Chen Jin believed he could create himself, with the help of his first ring it would only become easier.

And that's how he wanted to continue, passive, supportive skills that improve his foundation and set him up for the future, it would take longer to become truly strong, he couldn't compare with someone that got an incredible skill right off the bat, but he believed that as time passed his growth would start to speed up and the difference between himself and others would rapidly widen.

Anybody can create an attacking or defensive spirit skill, but something that permanently changes oneself is a lot harder, and that was his belief about spirit rings, they should be used to set the path for the future.

Currently and in the future, with the way that he was thinking about developing, the maximum amount of soul power at his disposal would be his greatest hurdle. So he had to get something that either stored vast amounts of energy, or sped up his regeneration.

At the same time he wanted something that increased his connection to the world around him even more, further building upon the first ring.

Chen Jin had a framework already and he was going to see if he managed to do it now. At the beginning he wanted something that affected his whole body, but he quickly discovered that he couldn't, so he settled for the next best thing.

The name of the spirit ability that he was going to try and condense was World Heart. The idea being that each beat of his heart not only restored his own energy, but it would also compress it lightly and spread it through his body, instead of meridians, his heart would serve as a secondary storage of sorts and the energy constantly travelling through his veins along with his blood would increase his physical parameters, as a side effect, when his reserves where full it would also help him cultivate.

If he suceded it would bring a lot of benefits, and as the ability improved and changed maybe in the future the beat of his heart would be the beat of the world around him?

In order to be successful Chen Jin had already ascertained the requirements he needed to meet. For the first ability he was in a meditative state, lost in the world around him, for World Heart he had to sincronize the absorbtion of spiritual power into his body with the beat of his heart, directing a bit of the energy there at the same time, something that he knew would take time. He was never against exercises that improved his control though, especially since this one also improved his control over the free energy around him.

It took him a month to succeed.

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Authors thoughts (they passed the 500 characters restriction)

And here we have another chapter!

World heart along with One with the World will be the core of all his spirit abilities in the future, they will change, get new effects and even one derivative abilitie each when they become 100 000 years spirit rings.

Fun fact, the original idea for world heart was to another mc that I thought about before this one based on solomon.

It was originally called Dragon Heart, and besides these effects it would also very slowly improve the MCs bloodline, from a small snake to the greatest of dragons.