The hands of fate

Chapter 109

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Sound of something breaking echoed through his ears as Shin Jiao felt his innards being torn to pieces. He gritted his teeth to bear through the painful process of healing his meridians. He knows and can feel that there is something forcefully opening up something deep inside his body. But as of this time, Shin Jiao could not see what is happening deep inside his body because his meridian is still currently blocked and he can't use spiritual sense.

Unlike before when he combined the spiritual Qi and natural energy cultivation, his meridian and vessels can freely access his dantian hence his consciousness was able to take him inside his body. But now, even though he has the absolute sense which he can use to see what's happening inside his body, he would not casually do so. Absolute sense would take too much of his mental strength as it would cause him heavy mental stress, and if he did so he may not be able to cope up with the pain he is currently feeling. This would, in turn, interrupt his concentration and may cause him to faint which may rob him of his life.

As he grits his teeth through the almost unbearable pain, he suddenly heard a popping sound, and then along came his consciousness. Shin Jiao lost feel that he fainted for just around two seconds before he found himself almost falling down. Luckily his will is strong he immediately woke up and caught himself. When his consciousness returns the sound and the pain actually didn't go away but luckily didn't intensify.

A few minutes have passed since Shin Jiao started the long, painful, and arduous journey in healing his meridians. But as time pass by, Shin Jiao can now bear with the pain as his mind and body have adjusted to it. He can now feel that something has happened inside his lower navel. It seems that something is rising deep inside his body as a very warm sensation envelops him. The pain and the aching have already stopped replaced by a calming comfortable feeling. Then Shin Jiao suddenly sensed that his body is trying to take in spiritual Qi.

This natural reaction of his body almost made him panic. Though it is a good sign that he can now take in and maybe use spiritual Qi, however, the problem is he doesn't want to only cultivate spiritual Qi. Plus he knows that he doesn't have any spiritual roots, so it should be impossible for him to absorb this large amount of spiritual Qi.

Without a choice, he immediately closed his eyes and was about to activate his absolute sense, then his consciousness travels inside his body and into his meridian channels, and there he saw many tunnels made of veins. Shin Jiao watched the scene of the intricacy of the human body. Though he had already seen this many times before when he started cultivating but seeing it again after a long time made him feel amused.

When his consciousness reached his dantian his amused and happy face turned dumbfounded. He saw something that almost made him curse out loud. His dantian is now a blank space, and in that blank space, there are six wisps of different colors representing six different elements. According to what he has learned these things are called spiritual roots. Upon seeing this, Shin Jiao felt panic-stricken in his heart. He didn't know what had happened and why his dantian now has spiritual roots which should not be.

But what causes him to feel a little distress is the number of spiritual roots in his dantian. If he has one spiritual root then he would be truly happy and can somewhat accept this, because in the cultivation land, having one spiritual root means faster cultivation and quicker control on that particular element.

Having two is a normal occurrence, as many people have those. The reason why normal cultivators took too long to cultivate is that having two spiritual roots would always take them to work twice as hard just to increase their strength.

Then there are those who have three or more spiritual roots which would make them cultivate far slower than the rest. Because of this, they may not reach higher cultivation realms. This is the case of Zi Nian, though he is a genius when it comes to controlling but because he has 3 spiritual roots his progress is far too slow than others. Plus no one is able to guide him as they considered it a waste of time.

Luckily for him, Shin Jiao has his own way of cultivating, which is unorthodox to the rest of the people in the cultivation land.

So in short, the more spiritual roots one has the harder it is for that person to reach higher realms. Now that Shin Jiao has six spiritual roots in his dantian this would mean that he would be considered by other cultivators to be the trashiest cultivator in the whole of the land.

Actually, when he discovers that has six spiritual roots in his dantian he did not panic because of it. What worries him the most is when he cannot find the spheres in his dantian, no matter how hard he tried to search for them they are not there.

As Shin Jiao ponder his circumstance, the now thick spiritual Qi in the room continues to be absorbed by his body. He didn't even notice the exponential growth of his dantian as it is slowly being filled with spiritual Qi. 

As Shin Jiao analyses his situation and is in deep thought he was not aware that something is already changing within his dantian. He is actually breaking through each level of cultivation realms as his dantian hungrily devoured the spiritual Qi in the area. When he broke through to the spirit refining realm his deep thinking was interrupted as he felt a hot sensation suddenly flows throughout his body.

"What!? What is happening?" Shin Jiao was flabbergasted upon seeing his dantian and the flow of Qi within his body.

"This is not happening… this is not happening. How can I be a cultivator? I should be more than this… Damn it. How… How can I reverse this? Is this the side effect of combining Silver Ghost roots? I know that Silver Ghost roots are a bunch of miraculous herb but… this is too absurd." Shin Jiao muttered feeling a little depressed.

Because of his desire to become stronger, rather than just fixing his meridians, it seems that the pill also caused him to grow spiritual roots.

Then Shin Jiao realized something, the reason why there are 6 spiritual roots inside his dantian, and the reason why they immediately formed in one go.

Shin Jiao recalled that ever since he started to cultivate his own technique, he has been absorbing a balanced amount of natural energy into his body and dantian. As he absorbed an equal amount of energy into his body this might have been the caused that his body has now adapted to all elements and thus giving him six spiritual roots.

This is the first possibility, and the second is that this is his true innate talent, the ability to wield different kinds of energies. Since young, he found himself able to do many things. And so, as a person with many skills and knowledge, this might be his fate.

Though Shin Jiao is a little dejected with the result, he still didn't feel down. He knows there is another way to gain control of his other ability to wield the natural elements. But for now, he has to after accepting the fact that he is now a cultivator. So, he decided to close his eyes and continue cultivating as he can still feel his body continuously absorbs the spiritual Qi in the air.

While his eyes are closed, he decided to scan his whole body for any other abnormalities. Then he smiled as he suddenly thought of an idea. Why not combine his spiritual and absolute sense together? Then without that thought in mind, he didn't think twice and began his experiments and started to put his whole concentration on it.

Not long later, Shin Jiao frown as he realized how hard it was to combine both senses. But this causes his curiosity to grow more, and because it is very challenging he became too engrossed in it.

...

As the time tick by many hours have passed and now the sun is starting to set in the horizon. The red rays of the sun illuminated the clouds showing a grand and splendor scene of a red hue. Inside a room of an inn, a young man is currently sitting on his bed in a lotus position.

Shin Jiao has already spent many hours but still is unable to combine both senses. He had tried many different ways just to be able to merge them but to no avail.

"Damn, I need to use my computer for this. This needs multitasking so that I can analyze things further. If only I can take out my laptop then…" Shin Jiao thought.

But then all of a sudden another inspiration flashed through his mind.

"What am I thinking? If I don't have my computer, then why not make one. I already know how to make a mini A.I. and the processing unit. All I need are material. Well, I'll just grab some inside the cave." Shin Jiao muttered as he started to plan out the things that he should do in his mind.

He excitedly opens his eyes and wanted to stand up, when he suddenly discovered something.

"Hmmm... Why did the spiritual Qi in this room suddenly become sparse?" Shin Jiao muttered.

Then he turned his gaze around the room and also feel his surroundings. Then not long later he suddenly showed a flabbergasted expression. His eyes slowly tilted down towards his pouch which is supposed to be full of spiritual stones.

This particular pouch that he is looking at right now is supposed to be sealed. But then he remembers that he actually forgot that he took some spiritual stones from it to give them as payment to the siblings. He immediately recalled that he seems to have forgotten to seal the pouch back, hench the spiritual Qi within the stones became the source of Qi inside the room.

His hands slowly reached for the pouch and when he lifted them up, upon doing so his heart almost bleed. As if unable to believe what had happened, Shin Jiao slowly open the pouch and there he saw… spiritual stone dust.

All the spiritual stones inside the pouch were turned to dust. He now realized that what his body has been greedily absorbing was the Qi of the many spiritual stones in the pouch. Luckily for him, he covered the room with an array formation if not, then the exposure of the quality of the mid-grade spiritual stones would cause many to force their way to his room and might steal them from him.

Then Shin Jiao immediately checked his condition. As his consciousness enters his body, he saw the visible changes. His body is now brimming with spiritual Qi and from inside, it is currently brimming with energy. Then in the center of his dantian, he immediately noticed a single grey core.

"What! I'm already a core-forming realm cultivator? I thought I would become a trash cultivator… hahaha… this might not be so bad after all." Shin Jiao muttered to himself.

He has already forgotten the dust-filled pouch filled with supposedly low-grade and mid-grade spiritual stones.

"But still I must learn to combine my spiritual sense and absolute sense. This way I would be able to bear the burden of my absolute sense and use it as often as I can. As long as I have spirit Qi inside my dantian I can control my absolute sense." Shin Jiao thought as a renewed determination glinted in his eyes.

Without a second thought, he immediately closes his eyes and continues his trial and error in combining both of his senses.

Unknown to Shin Jiao, what he is doing is already a taboo in the lower cultivation realms. This kind of technique would only be useful to those in the higher realm as one's mental fortitude would not be enough to control this kind of power if they are weak.

If it is easy to combine both spiritual Qi and absolute sense then many who are stuck in their cultivation realm for thousands of years would have already ascended to become saint immortals or deities. Although it is hard, Shin Jiao still would not give up. There are those cultivators who have cultivated for many years and have not reached the apex of their power and so after a long time, they have already accepted their fate. However, Shin Jiao is different from them.

As a modern man and a researcher, his mind works in a different way. Though earth doesn't have spiritual Qi as far as his knowledge is concerned, yet the people there were able to defy a lot of worldly laws by just using their minds. Even though they are just mortal, they are even able to defy gravity and exit the compounds of the planet.

Shin Jiao is one of those people who would always try and defy the laws of the world, so now he is trying to defy a natural law of this world. But of course to do so, one needs to use his mind and his wits. So while Shin Jiao is trying every corner and angle, he slowly learns a lot of things.

While he was too engrossed in his research and learning he didn't once again notice the flow of time.

When Shin Jiao opens his eyes a smile immediately appears on his face. Though he wasn't able to combine his spiritual sense and absolute sense however he has gained a better understanding of his spiritual sense and made it stronger. He was amazed at the distance his spiritual sense can now cover.

"This is really awesome… my spiritual sense can already reach up to a kilometer. If I continue doing this the growth of my spiritual sense would not be dependent on my cultivation progress." Shin Jiao muttered as he feels fulfilled at his accomplishments.

"Hmm… it just took me the whole night to improve this fast... Well, I think it's time for me to go. Hopefully, Rat Ling and Zen Nian would be okay in their clan trials." Shin Jiao thought as he has already spent almost 2 days in the town and decided to now leave.

So he stands up and started to clean the room of the restriction and array formations, and then after doing that he calmly walks out of the room.

When he got down, Shin Jiao seems to have noticed some figures that he recognized. So he immediately spreads his spiritual sense and true to his conjecture, he saw Zen Nian, Rat Ling, and Ya Nian. The three covered their heads with a robe as they walk towards the Nian clan state going straight towards the arena.

"Good luck guys!" Shin Jiao muttered as he too walks down the stairs of the inn.

But before he could go out the door, Shin Jiao felt something. So he immediately raised his vigilance and spreads his spiritual sense once again. And true to his feeling, he immediately noticed two figures looking straight at his back.

"Did they noticed me? Wait a minute… Damn, was I compromised." Shin Jiao thought.

He didn't expect that the information in the town would spread so fast. And that the people would immediately find him. He didn't cover his face as he is sure that no one would think that he is the same person.

When he was about to leave his room, he actually noticed that the scars on his face disappeared in just one night. Since they are just superficial scars, his body easily repaired them as he reaches the core-forming realm. But what he could not understand is how these people knew who he was.

So he immediately walks out of the inn and into a small alleyway. And true to his suspicion, he noticed two figures following him closely.

Then all of a suddenly not too far ahead of him, two figures also came out from the shadows.

"Kekeke… What a stupid young lad." A creepy voice of a man suddenly echoed from the darkness.