Antaura’s talents

After a few seconds, that felt like hell, Antaura and the teacher could finally relax because the feeling of absolute terror left their bodies. They were sweating all over, grasping for breath. From time to time you could still see a slight tremor run down their spines.

Aether looked at this scene with an awkward smile. He had expected his bloodline to put on a show, but not to this extent. He would have warned them had he known this would happen.

All he could do now was…

"Sorry, sorry, I didn't expect it to be this bad. But still, that was quite something."

apologize halfheartedly?

No, that isn't really what is happening.

Even though he isn't really at fault, Aether truly felt bad about the situation. He was joking about it and laughing the problem away a bit because he didn't know how to deal with the situation! In other words, Aether has no social skills whatsoever.

Spending six years almost exclusively in a library and only having a single old man to talk with doesn't really built up much experience with social interaction. It is already a miracle he doesn't feel awkward or uncomfortable just being in the presence of strangers. Still, this could be attributed to the fact that he grew up in a village where everyone knew everyone.

"Well, that was certainly… intense." The teacher had to pause a bit to find the correct word.

Antaura didn't say anything. She turned away, looked into a hand mirror and started to comb her hair that had gotten completely disheveled from the power the altar had released.

'I just got to know her and I already made her mad.' Aether couldn't help but feel like he was an idiot now. 'That aside, where did she get that mirror and comb from?'

After this thought, he looked to her hands to see if something he had read about was present. That is when he saw it, a deep jade green ring on her left middle finger. Antaura was wearing a storage ring.

The function of a storage ring is very simple. It is used to store items and other none living things in a pocket of space placed in the ring. Of course, making a storage ring is very difficult. Not just anyone could put a pocket of space in an object. Or rather create a pocket of space at all.

Aether shook his head to get rid of his thoughts and asked the teacher, "What is the evaluation of my blood cultivation talent?"

"Evaluation? How am I supposed to evaluate that!" The teacher couldn't help but get a bit angry and shout at Aether's question.

"The power of those two colors in the beginning was bad enough! And then came whatever the fu.. whatever that second thing was! And now you ask what my evaluation of your blood cultivation talent is?! If you don't have blood cultivation talent, then no one in this world is capable enough to cultivating their blood!"

Aether didn't say anything and let the teacher rant a bit, but ultimately still got the answer he both wanted and expected. His blood is truly special, and powerful. But this only gave him more questions than answers.

It is true that everybody's blood is different, everyone is a unique person after all. But even if that is true, you still inherit the core properties from your parents. So with that being the case, how could his parents possibly have been ordinary village people?

After Old Herb told him about his crippled talent, he did consider the possibility of being adopted. There is no way ordinary villagers could have birthed someone with such ridiculous talent. But this notion was thrown away when he started to learn about what blood actually is and how blood essence truly works.

The way Violet had used the blood essence from his parents corpses in order to heal him is only possible if you're directly related. Since there were no complications or other problems whatsoever, the possibility of Aether having been adopted became impossible. That event proved that they truly were his biological parents.

Aether shook his head in order to place these thoughts to the back of his head. He would revisit this mystery once he had more information.

Now it was time to look at Antaura's cultivation talent tests. He truly wanted to know how high she would score.

When Antaura finished combing her hair, she asked the teacher to first grade her body cultivation talent.

"You have an average build and some toned muscles. Your posture also seems to be very good. I'll give you grade B score for body cultivation talent." The teacher spoke this verdict as if he had already decided this some time ago.

But Aether raised an eyebrow when he heard this and couldn't agree with this decision at all.

First of all, it is very likely that Antaura has an innate constitution tied to the wind element. This means all of her, including her body, blood, soul and energy is special and thus better than ordinary people. It is thus almost impossible for her to have weak body cultivation talent.

If it was just this, you could still argue that it isn't clear whether she truly has an innate constitution or not. This way you could still rule out the decision for a good score based on that possibility.

But that is not the primary reason Aether thinks she has great body cultivation talent.

The real reason is the very body build the teacher called average, as well as the 'some toned muscles' he had mentioned.

Both are perfectly build for what Antaura's wind element represents. Her body and muscles are built for speed, swiftness and unpredictability.

Thanks to her innate constitution, Antaura's body is light, very light. She weights around half the amount someone of her stature should weight, while her muscles are structured in such a way that she can change direction at any point in time with whatever movement she wished. Of course, this means her joints are also structured to be way more flexible while her bones can actually bend in order to offset the pressure generated on her body. It almost seemed like the body of a snake, with such inhuman flexibility that it should be impossible.

Aether does admit it would be difficult for her to cultivate her body, but it has nothing to do with her body cultivation talent itself. The difficulty existed in finding a body cultivation technique she could actually use and train in. The selection of body cultivation techniques for someone like her would be rather small after all. That is if any exist in the first place.

Still, Aether didn't say any of this out loud and kept it to himself. He wasn't going to share his knowledge with some people he had just met for the first time today. And even if he did, what was the chance they would believe him in the first place? He could just as well talk to a wall, it would have the same effect.

Antaura nodded to the teacher and started walking to the altar for energy cultivation talent. She instantly placed her hands upon the altar and the neutral energy started to course through her body.

Aether was fascinated about the fact that he could see the inside of Antaura's body and started to pay full attention. Maybe he could learn something from the way her energy center and veins work.

After a few seconds, he could see her energy center and veins, and how they were supposed to look. He couldn't help but grimace a bit when he mentally compared them to his own. Compared to his own, these looked so beautiful and healthy he could almost cry.

Aether didn't dwell on this thought for too long and started to analyze what everything he saw means. He saw how her energy veins are a completely closed system, much like the blood vessels. All in all, it looked like the neutral energy ran through her body in circles. It should have been the same in his case, but he was enjoying the feeling of having the neutral energy run through him a bit too much, so he failed to notice this little detail.

Her energy center acted like the heart does for the blood vessels and blood. It caused the energy to circulate through the energy veins. Beside this, it also acts as an energy storage. Aether already knew this, but seeing it in person was still beneficial to his understanding.

In order to advance in energy cultivation, you need to store more and more energy in the energy center in order to push it to the limit. When it is completely filled, it will advance and you will have access to stronger and more energy. This will repeat until you either reach your limit, or die.

Naturally, this was only the most basic requirement in order to get higher cultivation, but it was also the most important. You would never advance a single rank without filling your energy center to the brim with energy.

After a sometime, the neutral energy left Antaura's body and she took her hands of the altar. She took a few seconds to contemplate a little bit and then looked at the teacher to get the grade.

"The neutral energy runs through your body rather smooth, and your energy center and veins are in a good condition. There is also the fact that you already have comprehended a nature for your energy. I'll grant you the score of S for energy cultivation talent."

This time Aether more or less agreed with the score the teacher gave to Antaura, although he had a different reasoning.

The reason the teacher gave Antaura such a high score is primarily because she already comprehended a nature. While this is not necessarily a wrong way to grade someone's talent, it is wrong in this context.

In the teacher's thought process, Antaura's energy cultivation potential is greatly boosted because she comprehended that nature so early. This way she could reach the third realm of the mortal foundation realms more easily, while the comprehension she needed to go past that has already begun.

The truth, however, is that she comprehended the nature because her energy cultivation talent in and of itself is just that high.

First of all, her energy already has an element, namely wind. This will boost the speed of her cultivation progress greatly because she doesn't need to add an element to her energy herself anymore.

Not only that, her comprehension of the wind nature is greatly boosted. This way her cultivation speed will be even greater, and the possibility of her getting stuck at the third realm of the mortal foundation realms was almost none existent.

Antaura simply nodded to the teacher and moved to the blood cultivation talent altar. It seems she wants to keep her combat test till last.

She took a small dagger out of her storage ring when she reached the altar and made a small cut on her left palm. The blood dropped onto the altar and got absorbed.

A few seconds where nothing happened passed before the altar glowed a little bit and a soft green light got released. When the green light appeared, the wind stirred and a soft breeze could be felt. This phenomenon confirmed Aether's hypothesis about Antaura having an innate constitution with the wind element tied to it. There is simply no other way to explain her blood having the wind element if this isn't the case.

But when Aether thought this, he suddenly narrowed his eye.

'Her having the wind element in her blood was expected, but what is that other feeling I have?'

Aether was confused. Yes, Antaura has the wind element in her blood, but there seemed to be something else as well. Something that felt cold and sinister, unlike the gentle touch wind normally has. It was different from Aether's second power his blood has. His second power is obviously not elemental, but this one is.

It baffled Aether completely. Her body is perfectly made for the wind element, so where does this second element, that is clearly also innate, come from. And even more importantly, what second element does she have?