Fear

The first step as spoken as if through a whisper– a whisper through the manual– through his mind was to imagine life as an insignificant thing. Utilize it as a tool to evaluate yourself and better your purposes.

Those who read this manual were following the true purpose of life. Xiaowen frowned when he got to this part. He had to read about a paragraph of exposition before he could truly begin to cultivate the essence of Macabre.

A story rolled into a manual. Insanity lined the pages as blood written scriptures were prized above it all as femine voices whispered their ways into the script and masculine welches shouted their madness freely into the air.

He could imagine the glory of the people who had written this book, it was all over the place yet twisted and contorted into a favorable line of reasoning that Xiaowen was able to understand rather easily.

Letting go of ambitions. Letting go of both memory and mind to truly cultivate a perhaps terrifying manual that writes the annihilation of nations. Yet, through there efforts a manual that would've initially rid the mind of purpose was channelled into a manual that sought the passion of its user.

His mind finally reached the best points of the manual. The way to cultivate the manual. He slowly closed his eyes and turned his palms upward, his dantain beat in rhythmic dread as a black tar like qi crawled its way into his dantain. It was thin and faint as if it was almost non-existent.

The first stage. The manual said… was 'bleeding the dantain' and 'changing the body.' he knew not of what it was about to do.

Yet, he soon learned what was about to happen. The moment the black qi touched his dantain his body was tossed into fire– his mind was tossed into the abyss. He immediately attempted to stop cultivating yet it stayed there constantly absorbing and revolting.

He clutched his chest with one hand as the black like Qi spiked in intensity. The darkness closed within his mind as true fear was evoked through the barrows of his heart and stressed its way through his body.

Dull sensation wracked his body. He opened his eyes as the pain grew unbearable. Yet, he truly wished he hadn't– He really sincerely wished he hadn't.

He shut them. Without a second thought. The thing– that monster had forced them closed with a mere glance onto its reptilian body that bordered on the possibility of being foreign– foreign, oh heavens. Had he stumbled upon true demons?

He withstood the pain the moment his eyes opened and shut closed. His body shut down everything, his brain became null to the pain, his heart had lost all sense of fear and turned into a primal form of self preservation.

He barely took another second to breathe. Until, the point his body had become a pasty pale blue.

He was suffocating. Yet, he never opened his eyes. Nor did he want to breathe, he was afraid it would become attracted to him.

Five agonizing minutes later. His body had returned to its normal color.

Xiaowen felt the entity leave. He stood still and began to pray. Openly praying to the heavenly emperor for protection.

…

"You know fear."

"You have learned it."

Xiaowen had unearthed the words from his mind that lay dormant from the pain and fear he felt resting itself onto his chest.

The old cultivator rose ten minutes later. He had prayed deeply. The fear was drained from his body. He couldn't believe what had happened and how clear his mind had become. After another ten minute did he looked at his dantain and realized the changes that had occurred in his body.

A black dantain and a vile resistance to qi that had built itself upon him like old moss. He weakly pulled his lips into a smile and nodded his head.

"It was worth it…" He nodded his head, "Such pain and suffering– oh, it was all worth it." He didn't know what having a black dantain would do but he had a few ideas and the qi resistance he imagined could protect him against foundation realm cultivators.

He would have to test if his body had become stronger in any way. However, it was all fine now. Afterall he could always worry about these things after they were done.

…

He was still in the Very Early, Qi Condensation realm. He frowned as thought about this. He tried to cultivate but found that no Qi would flow toward him anymore.

He frowned. His suspicions would need to be confirmed after all.

He read through the book in his memory and found that he should be able to do a few things at this stage, something similar to skills that had he attained for advancing to Qi Condensation Realm.

Yet no matter how hard he tried he found that nothing was working at all. He even tried to project the qi outside his body like a thin ball as explained in the manual but he found that nothing worked.

He backtracked reading over things he had missed and nodded to himself upon coming upon a certain line that made his smile turn pointed like a tiger's teeth.

"Spread fear and gain fear. Your power grows." He read over.

Xiaowen had exited his room and roamed the halls. His maids and butlers, the few that he had at least looked at him and anticipated something to happen. Xiaowen folded his hands behind his back and suddenly felt his dantain beginning to slowly fill.

It was true after all. Fear made his powers grow. His powers were more mental than physical he had assumed yet he didn't attempt to train his body yet. It was too fun to watch his servants squirm in his presence.

Yet, after some time of him just watching the servants and doing nothing he found that the fear he was receiving had decreased. He assumed that the servants were slowly getting used to his presence.

Then it spiked. His eyes danced playfully to the side and found the source coming from a maid that looked deathly pale. Their eyes met as her terror stricken eyes and his playful eyes clashed.

Xiaowen took a false step forward and she threw her head to the ground bowing in his presence the moment he made his way toward her.

He passed her by and he felt his power grow and thrive as he tracked his way back into his room.

Xiaowen smiled. Murders really did have a lot of fear now didn't they? Perhaps, she's still scared of him remembering a little detail there… or was she always so fearful of Xiaowen.

Now that Xiaowen had begun to really think about that maid she was really a strange existence to him. If the poison was going to kill him anyway, why did the other assassin kill Xiaowen before he even touched her?

He was interrupted crudely though. As a curt little lady came in front of him with a dazzling smile and pink hair that floated around her like a puffy cloud. "2nd Prince," she said sweetly enough, "I am Qi Dongmei, I'm from the Empress's staff and your report is requested."

Xiaowen's eyes involuntarily narrowed, "My report?" Xiaowen looked at her oddly. " I have something to report?"

"When you suddenly left the palace and every guardsman in the kingdom ran after you… The Emperor would love to understand where you were during that period." She spoke.

"The emperor uses the empress' staff to report to him?" Xiaowen took a few steps forcing her to walk along with him, "Did you perhaps smack your head on your way here? Or is it too much to say that you're only asking me out of courtesy?"

Seeing that she didn't reply, he smiled and spoke as if he was speaking about his breakfast, "Do what you will. I only remember waking in the dump. How I got there, I don't know. What happened before… I only remember waking up in the morning."

He continued, "Make something out of that. Make sure to tell the populace how an enemy nation attacked me in my sleep… oh. You can even use this as a perfect way to improve the image of the talon guard! How amazing." His hand tread forward inching toward her hair as he spoke.

She swiftly slapped his hand away. Her face contorted to once of uncontained disgust, "I think that's enough…"

He blew his hand off, "Slapping an injured victim? How rude." He pouted.

"Your acting is just how I expected it." She spoke, "Revolting, No wonder your fiance has left you for another man. I would've done the same if I was wed to you."

"How laughable." He chuckled, "Was that your best attempt at trying to insult me?"

"I could go on and on pig." She spat at him. "Minding my words with the likes of you has only put me into a bitter mood."

"Do you need the emperor's cock to fill that bitter mood?" His mouth moved unconsciously, as she stifled.

"You…" She seethed in rage.

"Careful now… You can't hit a prince." His eyes checked her. "Afterall, we've walked to the edge of where my domain lies…"

She looked around and found that in front of her were two guardsmen who were watching them closely. Xiaowen had memorized where the guards were and were not there. He also found that from memory guards were forced to act with biased graces toward the princes and the royal family.

If Xiaowen were to complain to the empress about her servant she would sneer at him and leave it alone, disrespecting the 2nd prince entirely. If he were to hit her servant the same thing would happen but instead it would've been treated as abuse of servants and the empress would spread the rumor.

However, Xiaowen didn't try with this servant; he could tell subconsciously in the pits of his gut that he shouldn't blindly attack people he didn't know. Perhaps this was common sense.

How he could have used it before.

"Now goodbye. Have a nice day." He told her then announced toward the end, "The emperor's cock awaits you."