4 Chapter 4

Zeke nodded calmly signifying that he thinks the same and added.

"I've already sent two elders to search for her. If they won't find her that means that she was taken away by the said helper or a kidnapper but I doubt that those two wouldn't foresee something like that might happen."

Then he took another teacup from his storage artifact and poured some tea into it.

"That leaves us with another problem. His elemental aptitude. There is no way in hell that they don't know about that."

Hearing his words Lewis ponders for a few seconds and then says.

"Yeah. That leaves us with two possibilities. Either everything went according to theirs plan and his elemental aptitude is something that we know like my lightning for example, or not which is absolutely tragic."

Zeke takes a sip of his tea and says.

"If it's the first option then there is no problem but if this is the other one then that means big problems. We cannot create a manual on the element that was never cultivated before on this continent."

Lewis sighs and says disappointed.

"Let's hope it's the former. I've never thought that I would feel so conflicted with such a great talent appearing in our sect."

After that, they continued to make plans for a worst-case scenario.

Auron arrived in the dormitories and asked one of the disciples responsible for arranging rooms. The said disciple gave him one of the free rooms.

The room is small and far from luxurious. It has enough space for a single bed and a table along with a chair. Right above a table is a small window which allows some light into the room.

He closed the door changed into his red robes and started inspecting the cultivation manual.

The manual describes a method of gathering pure spiritual particles from the air. He read through a whole manual in half an hour and immediately started practicing.

He sat cross-legged on his bed then closed his eyes and started meditating. A few minutes later he noticed that despite his closed eyes he could still 'see' energy particles floating in the air all around him.

According to a manual he needs to use his own consciousness and will to pull those particles into his body. The greater the distance between himself and the energy the harder it gets.

He tried several times without success. He thought that since it's just the beginning it should have been easy, but unfortunately, it's not.

Only after spending two hours and trying hundreds of times was he finally able to get the closest particle. Then he proceeded to draw more of the energy until he got too tired. During this session, he was able to pull seven specs of the energy and noticed that with each one of those absorbed it became easier to attract the next more. The reason was that the amount of energy inside his body grew which made both his body and mind stronger and that in consequence increased his ability to attract spiritual energy.

Auron was disappointed because despite cultivating for those hours he wasn't able to become a cultivator. A person could only be called a cultivator if they were able to advance beyond mortality and enter the qi gathering realm. But even then there are cultivators who think that they should be called semi-cultivators since those people are barely stronger than normal humans and can't utilize their element yet. So in order to become an official cultivator, they would need to achieve a foundation realm.

With that thought in his mind, he looked out of the window noticing it's a little past noon. Then he lied on his bed and took a nap.

He woke up to the sound of a bell ringing. It means that the dining hall opens and serves food for disciples.

He stood up and while looking behind the window started changing into his disciple robes.

'It's evening huh. After eating I will cultivate for a few more hours before going to sleep again.'

And so he went to the dining hall. What greeted him was a long line to a stall with a disciple distributing the food. Despite that there was a lot of space, so didn't bother passing by disciples.

To tell the truth the stronger the cultivator the less food their bodies require. For example, a foundation cultivator needs to eat only once in five days, but most of them still eat every day because the food contains elemental and spiritual energy which helps them grow in strength faster. But everyone before that stage needs daily meals.

After close to an hour he finally gets his turn. He was given a loaf of bread and a bowl of soup. To his surprise bread is actually soft while the soup has a lot of meat in it. At first, he thought that he will be given a bare minimum to survive but it seems that despite a large number of disciples the sect is treating them very well.

He ate his meal and left the dining hall. At the entrance, he met an inner disciple who handed him a note from the sect master. He read the contents while walking back to his room.

The note was short and the writing was messy which means that the writer had written it in a hurry. There were a lot of crossed words which means that the sect master was trying to change his wordings, Auron was weird but quickly threw it away from his mind as the message was way more important for him.

The note said that his sister is safe and that someone trustworthy is taking care of her. It also said that his parents were sighted in one of the cities and that they are traveling while knowing about his and Ayda's situation.

He found such vague wording suspicious and adding to that those hurriedly written words along with some of the pieces of paper missing it means that Zeke is trying to hide something. Unfortunately, he knew that he won't be able to uncover this secret, at least not now. The only thing that mattered is that everyone is safe.

Then he heard a voice from behind him.

"Hello there"

He turned around and saw Edward along with some girl obviously older than him. She had brown medium hair and green eyes. She was taller than Auron and wears a little too big inner-disciple robes which are doing a poor job hiding her well-developed body.

"Hello Edward"

Edward smiled and shook Auron's hand and introduced a woman to him.

"This is my older sister Martha."

When introduced the girl smiled and said.

"So you are the new disciple that Elder Lewis brought with him."

The boy she was talking to nodded his head and replied.

"Yes, that's me. My name is Auron."

They chatted for a while. Mainly it was Martha and Edward asking him about his impression of the sect explaining to him a few things about the inner hierarchy of disciples.

When he arrived in his room it was already dark outside. Not waiting any longer he sat on his bed and started cultivating.

During that, he noticed something weird. It appeared that his cultivation speed grows exponentially during the night. No one ever told him about such an occurrence, but after a while of thinking this through, he got some ideas. The first one is that it has something to do with a cultivation method but quickly denied it due to the fact that they would have explained this to him.

He also went through the idea that it was a food he ate before, but just like the previous one, this one was denied in an instant because while eating he didn't feel any energy entering his body which means that it was just normal bread and soup.

That left him with a fact that it has something to do with his elemental aptitude. Since it can affect his cultivation speed even while still can't use the said element means that it's extremely powerful. Either way, he didn't have anything against that. It only benefits him after all, but just to be safe he decided to mention that matter to Zeke the next day.

He cultivated for four hours, catching twelve energy particles and officially becoming a cultivator. Every cultivation realm is divided into ten layers which are categorized into the early, middle, and late of each realm. Early is considered to be from first to third, middle from fourth to seventh, and late from eight to ten.

Auron was ecstatic. He advanced from mortal to a 1st Qi Gathering realm cultivator in a single day. He considered his talent in cultivation to be amazing.

The truth was that his cultivation speed is average. The thing that he should be proud of should be his comprehension ability.

Normally it takes disciples a week to advance and begin their cultivation journey. Most of the time it takes them to understand a cultivation manual. An average disciple needs at least five days to read and comprehend a method contained in this particular manual while Auron has done it in a few minutes. This ability will become very useful to him in the future.

avataravatar
Next chapter