26 Good Cultivation Ground
The two Fire Earth warriors could do nothing to defend against the snake-shaped grim reaper that attacked them. Let alone counterattack, they were not even able to see it move!
Darkscale had finally tased human blood, and he liked it! There was pride in his eyes while he wrapped himself around the neck of the bald man.
"You should rejoice human! You are not dying for nothing" hissed the snaked, squeezing the flesh entrapped in his grip until it was reduced to a mush.
The remaining Fire Earth warrior was beyond shaken: he used his ax, attacking the demonic creature that was killing his companion. No, not to save him but to save himself!
His slash would hurt both the bald man and the beast that was killing him. Naturally, it was all for naught. Under the terrorized eyes of the bearded warrior, his ax hit the scaled beast and simply bounced from the black scales. Sparks exploded from the impact, and the warrior felt like he just tried to chop a block of iron with his weapon.
His faced voided of colors, he fell back, trying to keep his weapon between himself and the creature that was now looking at him with devious eyes.
Desperation could be seen on his scarred old face: how was he supposed to beat something like that? A body that was though like iron?
"Don't run, the closer you are from the rune the better it is..." lamented the snake, darting from its position on the neck of the bald man to the bearded fleeing man.
The body he just left remained on its feet for a couple of seconds, only to lose its balance under the night's wind and to fall gravely on the ground. Coincidentally, not too far from the drawing that the snake had decored the dark earth with.
A snap of his tail, the serpent catapulted the remaining Fire Earth Tribe member back, towards the dead body of his companion. The man fell down next to the cadaver with a hideously ruined neck, his eyes full of pain and regret.
He regretted being overwhelmed by his greed so much that he didn't manage to sidestep this mortal danger. No, he had been so blind that he literally jumped towards his death.
That simple coup of tail he received broke almost every bone he had on his torso, making it impossible for him to run away. Probably even if someone managed to save him, he would die for the internal damage received.
Darkscale was surprised to see a bloody smile appeared on his lips, instead of the fear that he was expecting.
"My soul... now goes... with the eternal flame of the ancestors..." said the warrior with a broken voice, spitting blood at every word.
The serpent looked at him with widened eyes. Ancestors? Eternal Flame? What were those things? He knew that ancestors were old people, that was what he experienced from his Dreams: only people called themselves Ancestors. However, that was all that he knew about them. As for this Eternal Flame? He knew nothing about it.
One thing was sure though. No matter where this guy thought his soul was going, he would soon realize it wasn't quite true.
"I think you're wrong about that, human" began the serpent, looking curiously at the dying biped, while moving towards the rune that he drew.
"I am an honorable warrior! The ancestors will accept me in the Eternal Flame!" said stubbornly the man, his eyes already losing focus. He was sure about what he was saying: this was after all the core belief of his tribe.
Everyone who died in battle would see his soul gathered in the Eternal Flame, living next to their ancestors and other honorable warriors until they were ready to reincarnate again. Every Fire Earth member knew that.
"Oh I don't know about honor... I just know that your soul will not go anywhere, silly human" said the serpent, now in the center of the complex marking on the ground.
His eyes started shining with silver light, while tendrils of silver energy emerged from his body and reversed themselves into the runes under his body. The runes shined with light, slowly starting to hum with a rhythmic noise.
"That's because I'm going to take it!" announced the reptile, his eyes now fully covered in silver light. His body shined, as ripples of silver grim energy expanded from his body.
"Activate: Heavenly Battleground Technique Rune!" he laughed.
Suddenly the humming sound began to grow stronger, and the runes to pulse with even more silver light. Then, the snake at the center of the rune abruptly opened his mouth, a concentrated look on emerging on his little face.
A vortex started to form before his opened jaws, absorbing red streaks of light that came from surrounding air.
Obviously, that was the Pretorian's Breath!
Darkscale was using it in conjunction with the technique that he got from the poor human from whom he robbed Blue Cave, Yun Sutao.
The Heavenly Battleground Technique could make the user absorb a vast quantity of battleground related energies! The perfect place to use it was a true battleground, and now the young serpent was in one.
The majority of the energy that was sucked into the Pretorian's Breath vortex was red in color.
"Blood energy! Come!"
Blood Energy. The ruins of the convoy were full of it. Numerous cadavers were robbed by the Pretorian's Breath of that dark red energy, that ended rapidly inside the vortex before Darkscale and then directly inside the serpent's body, strengthening his cultivation base. Even living people, those with open wounds, felt their strength lessen as strikes of red energy flew outside from their open injuries and into the voracious vortex created by the black reptile.
The strange thing was that red current of energy emerged even from the ground, like if there was an untapped quantity of blood energy hidden under the ground.
"This is almost as good as the Ghost Pond!" thought the serpent, devouring great quantity of red energy. That energy entered inside him and flowed into his flesh, losing a part of its strength to reinforce his body and then continuing its travel to a little spot near his hear.
There, it entered a little bead-like organ, where it was highly compressed and stored together with the energy that the snake has been gathering for the past month thanks to the Heavenly Battleground Cultivation Technique and the Ghost Pond.
That bead-like organ was his Natural Heart!
A Natural Heart could be considered the first true step in the cultivator world! It was basically a container of energy that helped stabilize a cultivator base. Without it, the energy gathered by a cultivator would gradually dissipate over time, especially when the owner wasn't awake. Thanks to the Natural Heart the energy he painstakingly gathered remained trapped inside him, unable to leave even if years passed.
Commonly, an energy container like the Natural Heart was way more resistant than any other part of the cultivator's body. The higher the cultivation base and the cultivation method used, the more sturdy was the container of energy created.
This wasn't something that was especially necessary, but every cultivation method that was worth something had methods to strengthen the defense of the place where the cultivation base was stored. Why? Because it was the most important organ of every cultivator!
It also made cultivators being able to sustain a cultivation base that was way higher than their normal rate of energy's absorption and endurance. It didn't matter that their gathering rate was slow if they had a place where they could store energy for later use. It also didn't matter that their body wasn't able to sustain great quantity of energy: they just needed to make sure that their energy container was able to do so!
This was why Gathering and Tempering were always a little less important than Manipulation, even if the three of the skills were finally considered the Pillars of Cultivation. A good energy container could make for bad Gathering and Tempering Skills, but there wasn't any trick that could be used to lower the importance of Manipulation.
"I'm almost there" thought the serpent feeling his Natural Heart expand under the unceasing flow of energy.
As Carelia once explained to him, the early stages of Cultivation were mostly about tempering and strengthening the Natural Heart.
To do so, every cultivator would use various methods that would transform the Natural Heart. The most used method was described in The Cultivator Way Pamphlet that Spike gave him: it was the Immortal Path's Method. Transforming the Natural Heart into an Internal Furnace.
Truth to be told, Darkscale had already met the standards required to force such transformation. In fact, the Pamphlet explained that a fully grown and stable Natural Heart was way more difficult to transform than a half-grown one like the one that the serpent had.
His energy container was unstable, so it was highly malleable and could easily be transformed into an Internal Furnace. Carelia, however, told Darkscale to ignore those methods and only to focus on forming a strong and complete Natural Heart without trying to plasm it into an Internal Furnace.
Although the Inter Furnace would allow him to have a stronger cultivation base at the moment he created it, it would also require him to follow a very stupid Path of Cultivation, she said.
Dakscale didn't understand why, but he followed her advice: she usually as correct on her suggestion, plus she already modified the Battleground Technique to not force the Natural Heart to become an Internal Furnace. If he wanted to form an Internal Furnace for some reason, he would have to recour to the boring methods described in the Pampleth.
"Almost there" continued thinking the concentrated reptile, sucking in enourmous quantities of battleground energy.
Suddenly, the rithm of the absortion quikned and between the red colored stikes of light, even silver ones began to be sucked into the vortex.
"Ghost Energy! Come!"
