19 - Idea

'Is this a bloodline inheritance?' He couldn't help but wonder. Such a thing hadn't ever appeared on this continent, at least not in this era, and it was only heard of in legends even in other places of the world.

If it was really a bloodline inheritance, then that would explain everything.

It would explain why he was able to recover, why his face and body had changed, why his eye, hair, and nail colors also changed, and why his personality had also changed and become calmer.

Suddenly, everything seemed to make sense to him, and he realized just how lucky he had been to get this chance, but he didn't realize that calling it a 'mere' bloodline inheritance would be nothing but an insult to the person who had set it up.

He suddenly got excited as he started to recover, but he didn't show any change on his face as he was still in front of Xia Yue and Xiao Wei.

Both of them had realized when he had switched back to the icy element, but they quickly went back to cultivation and ignored him.

At the same time, he also realized that the aquamarine blood within his body was automatically gathering mostly around the cut on his arm and healing it, which astonished him.

Although it was only two drops of blood in total, it had spread through his entire body, and though he could condense them to the actual drops of blood, it was more accurate to say that a portion of his blood had been replaced by the aquamarine blood.

After all, each drop of blood was made up of about five hundred thousand individual cells, so for it to stay together was a bit weird.

As he recovered his inner energy, he couldn't help but wonder why the blood had absorbed all the inner energy in his body just to split into two.

After all, there was a truly massive amount of energy contained in his whole body, even if he was weak, and for all of it to be absorbed by just a drop of blood was quite shocking to him, and he couldn't help but wonder if that power was actually contained in the blood itself.

However, he suddenly discarded this thought as he thought about it.

It was probably using all the energy just to double in volume, and he also realized that it had connected to his body itself, so it was probably bonding to his life energy that was contained within the inner energy that it absorbed, allowing him to sense it and control it.

This meant that he figured that the blood was bound to his lifeforce, and this meant that it was truly a part of *him* now as opposed to before where it was merely a part of his body.

He also realized that suddenly, the speed at which he could summon qi had increased, as had all his senses, including his sight and hearing.

Even his touch, taste, and smell had increased dramatically in only a couple moments, and he felt like he could sense everything that was happening around him.

He didn't realize it, but his eyes seemed to gain depth at this moment, and the aquamarine color seemed to turn his eyes into beautiful gems.

He didn't realize it, but his dantian had also started to change from the natural pearly white color to an aquamarine color, just like the aquamarine blood in his body.

All of these invisible changes happened in his body in only a few moments, and he almost didn't notice the difference since they were so small, but he did notice the change, and it overall had a dramatic effect on how he felt right now.

He simply showed his happiness by smiling, and he continued to recover his inner energy as golden specks of light floated into his body, instantly changing into inner energy and spreading around his body, currently in the watery form of his inner energy.

However, he realized quite quickly that the aquamarine blood in his body very slightly strengthened the inner energy it came in contact with, and it allowed him better control over it, which made him further happy.

He didn't even realize that this blood had changed his destiny and was perfectly in sync with his soul itself. This meant that nobody in existence other than him could have ever bonded with this blood. It was destined to be with him, and him alone.

This destiny predated him and this whole continent, and possibly the entirety of this world.

Time passed slowly, and eventually, Xu Xin had recovered the entirety of his inner energy again, and he was capable of delving back into the element of ice and water.

As he did so, there would be flashes of aquamarine color on his skin, some of them freezing cold and others calm and flowing like water, and sometimes they even intertwined.

This process would continue for a few minutes, and then he would stop to recover and digest the information he had learned.

What he was doing in specific was learning ways to control the inner energy within his body in order to give him an advantage during a fight, because even though he already had extremely good awareness during battle, it would help him immensely if he was able to properly use his inner energy.

He repeated this process constantly, and it was a bit weird to look at, since his skin was constantly being covered in a faint glow of ice or water, both in the same color.

He had realized that the aquamarine color had also transferred to his inner energy, but it made no difference on how he used it and how strong it was, so he didn't care much.

In fact, he even felt that the aquamarine blood interacting with his dantian had actually enhanced the strength of his icy inner energy and the speed at which he learned it, hence why he used the ice element more than the water element during the earlier fights.

As he experimented, he slowly found new ways in which he could use the elements of water and ice to improve his fighting ability.

One such way was that he could use the watery inner energy in his joints to allow him to move faster and more fluidly, and he could then convert it to the icy inner energy to reinforce his joints to allow him to take a hit more solidly if he needed to do so, like how catching a punch with your joints stiffer was much easier than with limp joints.

At the same time, he could also use the watery inner energy to also help cushion the impact of a hit, even further lowering the damage dealt to him.

This style of defense was perfectly suited towards how he fought, which meant that it was even more effective than normal. As far as defense went, this was perfect for him.

Meanwhile, on the side of offense, the element of water was almost useless, but ice was extremely helpful. One such way was that he could gather a whole bunch of inner energy of the ice element onto his fingernails and form 'claws' that he could use to slice into the enemy's body.

Of course, inner energy wasn't at a high enough level that it could form something tangible, but adding onto something that already existed by only a short distance was possible, hence he could 'lengthen' his nails with the icy inner energy and form 'ice claws'.

He knew that it would be possible as he got stronger though, like how he could previously form spikes of metal or flames that spread all around his body at the peak of his 'previous' life.

He couldn't, however, figure out any way to increase his speed or agility other than the extra flexibility from the water element.

But this wasn't much of an issue because he already had incredible reaction speed, and that allowed him to make up for his lack of physical speed.

He then suddenly took back all the inner energy in his body back into his dantian and had a smile across his face. He had gained quite a lot just from his mere experimenting.

He had actually managed to develop two techniques that were perfectly suited towards his style of fighting, and that was very useful for him, because he could continue to improve them as time went on and increase their grade as he got stronger.

The reason he was so happy about this was because the ancient ice water technique, though it was good, didn't have many techniques for fighting in it, and it was more focused towards the refining of the inner energy in the body.

Meanwhile, the techniques that it did have weren't particularly suited towards him, like the barrier of ice over the body. It would encumber his flexibility, which was one of the main components of his fighting style, and that would leave him vulnerable to more attacks.

Although it was a great defense skill, it wasn't suited towards his style, so he wouldn't use it nearly as much as his newly developed techniques.

Of course, his new techniques currently needed much refining and practice, and he figured that it would be a while before they made a massive difference, but they were still immensely useful to him at this stage in his strength.

As he looked around, he realized that both Xiao Wei and Xia Yue were cultivating silently, with a constant stream of golden energy going towards Xia Yue in particular as she cultivated.

Journeys were long, and during this time, the primary activity that people engaged in was cultivating, only stopping to eat and sleep.

However, despite the fact that they were both cultivating, Xu Xin was able to tell that both of them still had a bit of focus on what was happening inside the carriage.

After all, there was still the chance that this boy was Xiao Xin, which could spell disaster if they weren't paying attention, even for Xia Yue, as strong as she was.

But he didn't really care if they were suspicious of him, because if he was the same Xiao Xin as before, he wouldn't be able to restrain himself from trying to kill this person right in front of him who had completely ruined his life.

This meant that, in their eyes, he was most likely not Xiao Xin just based on this level of restraint not being something that Xiao Xin possessed.

After all, he was known to be super impulsive and driven by his instincts despite his terrifying intelligence.

In fact, he was still struggling even with the change to his mind brought by the aquamarine blood.

He had become calmer and more stable in his emotions, but he still hated his brother down to his very core, wishing to see him suffering in eternal damnation for taking the one he loved from him.

Just thinking about it made the smile on his face vanish, replaced by a deep frown. But still, he kept calm.

One thing that he had been trained in specifically was how to hide emotions and thoughts. If he didn't want anyone to know, nobody would know what he was thinking about or how he felt.

Combined with the calmness that was brought by the aquamarine blood, he was able to restrain himself from attacking Xiao Wei, and it also allowed him to fully hide his hate from his brother.

The calmness that he felt could be said to be a passive effect of the blood merging with his mind and body, and it calmed down his previously impulsive attitude to be more logical and analytical.

He hadn't even realized how much of a difference it had made to his personality.

Seeing that they were just sitting there cultivating, Xu Xin felt that he should do the same since he had already figured out a few ways to increase his strength in a fight.

But he suddenly had an idea. What if he used his aquamarine blood to strengthen the use of his techniques?