Chapter 27: First Current

A short corridor ended in a massive double-wing door. Opening it, Yee Rhys made his way inside. The hall turned out not to be that big. Only a hundred by a hundred meters and twenty in height. For a Wisp Creation Sphere, it was spacious, but for a Soaring Core Sphere, it was already a bit tight.

Launching his Qi into the pass, the young man found the hall's control function. He summoned a dozen puppets of one wisp to warm up.

After sweeping them out, he summoned a dozen of two wisps.

Having dealt with those as well, he summoned a dozen of three wisps. Finally the fun began.

Ten minutes later, Yee Rhys had his back against the wall of the hall. A dozen of three wisps was too much. He had to go all out. And that was despite the fact that the puppets didn't use Qi, limiting themselves to physical attacks.

A pleasant surprise was that he overcame this dozen without any Qi techniques, just his body strength and his own experience.

The young man looked at his hand.

It appeared that his body was now equivalent to the second stage of the Body Strengthening sphere, allowing him to fight a two wisps Qi cultivator like equal without using Qi techniques. This is pleasing. And when one manages to reach the first current in mental energy, the strength of the body will increase by a stage, and the perception radius will reach ten meters. And that's without mentioning the quality of perception. At that rate, that dozen will be an easy snack.

It looks like the Beginners Ranking Tournament will be easy.

Yee Rhys summoned a dozen more opponents. He would enjoy the battle for starters. What a good thing that the suicide spell doesn't work here due to the lack of a real threat.

***

Outside, the guards looked at each other grimly.

- What do you think of this boy? - Finally asked the left-handed disciple.

- Never heard of him. - The right one frowned. - But first level pass is usually approved by someone from the Great Elders. We should stay out of it.

- But why would this little fellow attract a Great Elder? - Lefty pondered. - Oh, shall we see what he's up to?

- Not supposed to. - The Right One shook his head grudgingly.

- Not supposed to reveal information. - Left shook his head grudgingly. - But we wouldn't tell anyone, would we?

He's already connected to the surveillance system.

- Woah.

- What? - The Right was involuntarily interested.

- See for yourself. - Lefty said. - The kid can take out three-wisp guys with one wisp. And he's only hurt himself a couple of times.

- Then the elders' interest is justified. - Nodded the Right. - But we'd better keep silent. You never know what they're going to train him for.

The guards glanced at each other. Sometimes unknown geniuses like that came up here. They were usually raised in secrecy for special tasks, and no one was supposed to know about them.

- You are right. - Lefty agreed. - We didn't see anything.

***

Leaving the Puppet Coliseum, Yee Rhys distributed the remaining hours, taking reservations accordingly. As it turned out, a Level 3 pass allowed making reservations for a week in advance, a Level 2 pass for two weeks, and a Level 1 pass for three weeks. The young man distributed the time until the Beginners Ranking Tournament, deciding not to rush into further plans.

Walking home, Yee Rhys enjoyed a pleasant exhaustion. His body had relaxed quite a bit in these five years, plus the post-effects of the merge. Reflexes were noticeably dulled, movements were forgotten. And now the first thing to do was to remaster the basic movements, to get them into muscle memory, and to restore reflexes. The Puppet Coliseum was the best fit for this purpose.

Earlier in the array, having finished warming up, the young man summoned a hundred puppets of two wisps and began methodically mastering basic movements. Toward the end, he tried the Gem Blade on a puppet of four wisps. He decided not to practice the Gem Scatter and Gem Shield for the time being because of his low Qi level.

Overall, the Puppet Coliseum turned out to be a worthwhile place.

***

Time flowed slowly and measuredly. Yee Rhys cultivated, practiced, and attended lectures, gathering information along the way.

On the eighth day in the Outer Sect, the young man managed to make a breakthrough in mental cultivation and successfully reached the first current, officially entering the first sphere of mental energy - The Five Currents.

After admiring the fully completed ring in his mind, Yee Rhys smiled. Another milestone on the path of cultivation.

The Five Currents Sphere required that five rings of mental energy be consistently created, which were officially called currents as the energy constantly flowed through them according to a prescribed route. Due to the effect of the currents in the future the mental energy would gradually increase even without purposeful cultivation, albeit very slowly.

The five currents together visually resembled a balloon, and the transition to the next sphere "Seven Rings" was accompanied by the compression of all the currents into a single whole and the formation of a sphere - the basis for creating rings during the subsequent cultivation.

For now, the young man simply enjoyed the strange mixture of mental exhaustion and euphoria. The completed current was slowly spreading grains of mental energy around, increasing the overall tone and slowly washing away fatigue.

Concentrating, Yee Rhys realized that his perception had reached the long-awaited ten meters, completely covering the cabin and even partially reaching the neighbors' cabins. The quality of the sensation was excellent, you could feel every blade of grass. Not even a blade of grass, every bug in the grass.

For a while he was just enjoying his newly discovered abilities. Then he began to purposefully speed up the current, increasing the amount of energy released. Only when his temples began to tingle did he stop.

He lifted his hand and felt his temple. According to his ancestral memory, the first rank mark, or rather, two marks, one for each temple, should appear when he reached the first current. These marks appeared on their own as the mental energy was cultivated. It was because of them that the Fa-Al were also called Tagged. And they were also one of the main objects of disguise. The other thing was the unique ancestral aura.

His hand didn't feel anything, but that didn't tell anything. With a sigh, Yee Rhys brought out the Qi and formed a small mirror out of it. It wouldn't last long, but it didn't need to. Turning his head and pulling back his hair, the young man examined his temple. Then the other. There were indeed marks, identical, symbols of few dashes that looked like two little fish in a circle around a common center.

Yeah, that could really draw some attention.

Confirming his expectations, Yee Rhys sat down to form a Qi capsule. It was necessary to hide the ancestral signs as soon as possible. And to do so, the first thing to do was to gather the necessary amount of mental energy.

An hour later, he managed to gather enough energy. After he had dipped into his ancestral memory, he carefully studied the cloaking spell. It was a bit tricky, but it was well worth the effort.

He imprinted the formula in his mind and then carefully formed wisps of mental energy, weaving together a series of intricate symbols. He covered his body with the resulting construction. Dense layers of illusions covered his temples and eyes, and a thin network of wisps wrapped around his body to hide his aura. A separate net covered his mind space, creating the illusion of a standard mental level for his Qi cultivation. Making sure the spell was securely connected to the current, the young man relaxed. Now this spell would be his constant companion.

A constant lie. Yee Rhys felt the bitterness on the tip of his tongue. Unpleasant, but necessary.

Leaving his doubts for later, the young man closed his eyes and fell into a healing sleep.