Surprising Breakthrough

It was already nighttime. The stars and moon in the sky were bright, and the night breeze flowed with a hint of scented fragrance.

There was no light in the room. Di Lan calmed his state of mind, letting his focus slip into the spiritual sea.

The waves of the spiritual fog sea rose and fell, the fog giving out orange colored light. Every wisp of fog was the orange spiritual essence that a quarter stage Rank one Spirit Master specially had. The spiritual sea now took up 25% of the entire core; this was Di Lan's mortal grade talent's limitation.

The walls of the core were a thin layer of purple light, supporting and encasing the spiritual core. Above the spiritual sea there was nothing. The orange ball had already hidden itself away under, restoring itself under a deep sleep.

Floating on the spiritual sea was a majestic sapphire Moonfang. It frisked about with its heart's content on the seawater, sometimes diving into the fog sea, most of the times would just let itself float and be drifted.

Di Lan mobilized a ten percent of his spiritual essence, transforming it into a narrow flow, thrusting it all into the Moonfang Spirit. The Moonfang had already been refined by him, so this time it did not resist. It took in the entire wisp of spiritual essence and absorbed everything into its body.

Immediately, the fog sea surface dropped by a noticeable cut. The excited Moonfang turned the spiritual essence into a driving force and began to radiate out blue light. Inside the soft light, an enshrouding mist of moonlight were gradually produced, finally converging into a pale blue moon mist.

The moon mist was marvelous. It did not drift apart, instead enveloping around the Moonfang.

"Rise." Di Lan gave a thought, transferring another ten percent of his spiritual essence. The orange fog sea dived into the moon mist; as the moon mist melted into the fog sea, it gradually lessened, and eventually there was no trace of it left. As for that ten percent of orange essence, it also lost its general volume and was left with three percent.

However, this three percent of spiritual essence was even more condensed than before. The original spiritual essence was a light orange. Right now, although this new spiritual essence had the same color, the light orange was a darker shade – it was now legit orange.

Green coloured spiritual essence was the spiritual essence that only a Rank one middle stage Spiritual Master would have. One of the Spirit's use was to hasten the condensation of the spiritual essence and increase it by a small realm rank!

A Spirit Master had 9 great realms, from the bottom – Rank one, Rank two, all the way to Rank nine. Every great realm was split into four smaller realms, which were quarter stage, middle stage, upper stage and perfect stage.

Di Lan was only a Rank one initial stage Spirit Master right now, but with the Moonfang's help, he had 3% of a Rank one middle stage Spirit Master's spiritual essence!

"If I want to condense out 3% of middle stage spiritual essence I would need to use 20% of quarte stage spiritual essence. I want to convert all the 25% of my spiritual sea into middle stage spiritual essence, so I'd need to use around 160% of quarter stage spiritual essence. To reach this target as soon as possible, I'd need to borrow the help of spirit stones."

As he thought of this, the orange ball deep in the spiritual sea suddenly gobbled up the three percent of his mid stage spiritual essence.

Di Lan opened his eyes right away, stunned with what happened. When he checked back inside his core, the orange ball was oozing out with light orange mist as it silently hibernating.

Gradually, after oozing out this orange mist, Di Lan can feel that the spiritual essence threshold of his core has broken through. Di Lan does not know if this is a good thing with his current situation. Cultivating middle stage spiritual essence is important in order to raise his cultivation. On the other hand, raising his talent is important too in the long run.

"So, this must be the use of this mysterious Spirit..?" Di Lan pondered as to what other uses does this spirit have or if there's still any.

Di Lan took out a complete spirit stone the size of a quail egg from his bag. The spirit stone was a sort of ellipsoidal shaped, milky white stone. As the natural essence inside it is consumed, its color would continue to look dull.

His left hand slowly closed, the spirit stone tightly clenched in his palm. He absorbed the natural spirit essence inside the stone, continuously replenishing his own core. The level of the fog surface that had fallen in his core slowly began to rise.

"My spiritual sea capacity is now 28%." Di Lan was in disbelief. "Does this mean that I have a bronze grade talent now?"

Realizing that this was what's happening, Di Lan mobilized his spiritual essence to the Moonfang Spirit again to be condensed into a middle stage spiritual essence. After condensing another 3% of middle stage spiritual essence, the orange ball gobbled it again, oozing out another orange mist.

When Di Lan used another spirit stones, he found out that the capacity of his spiritual sea has again risen into 31%. Di Lan's eyes sparkled to this conclusion.

As Di Lan excitedly wanted to raise the capacity of spiritual sea, the Moonfang Spirit's glow were now weak and barely flickering telling that it's will for now have been consumed. Using it again would destroy the Spirit for good. Di Lan could only let out a sigh, splashing a cold water on his mood.

"I do not have someone to back me up, and I do not have support from friends and family, thus I can only rely on extortion and plundering. With this business of raising up my cultivation and my talent grade, lots and lots of spirit stones will be splurged. Today was just the first time, but after this, every seven days when the academy gives out the school allowance, I will continue blocking the academy gates."

How could robbing and blackmailing once satisfy Di Lan's appetite? In a Spirit Master's cultivation, the spirit stone was the most scarce thing. As for the consequences of his plundering actions, Di Lan was not the least worried.

This world was not the same as Earth.

On Earth, schools would always prohibit fights to mainly stabilize harmony. But in this world, fighting was the main theme.

No matter, a Spirit Master or common mortal, they would fight for survival. Sometimes, it would be a fight with a scary wild beast. Sometimes it would be a battle against the natural disaster, and other times, it could be a fight against other Spirit Masters over resources.

As a result, moderate fighting was instead encouraged and advocated by people.

From young to old, from simple brawls to battles determining life and death, this was the portrayal of most of the human lives here.

The surface of this world was boundless. I believe the Southern Region alone that the Di Lan stayed in now, it was as big as the entire continent of the Earth itself. The living environment here was hostile and cruel, so humans would often construct mountain villages in the form of clans, holing up together.

Every now and then there would be waves of beasts, or perhaps extremely bad weather assaulting a village. The Sprit Master would become the core force of a village's protection, and every year the situation of attrition would become more serious.

Surviving requires men with strong fighting will. A clan needs battle Spirit Masters, there is never too much. Moreover, Di Lan's attacks were within the proper limit.

He never attacked the vulnerable spots of the head, as this would easily cause the skull to fracture and cause the loss of a human life. He also never struck the back of the head. When fighting, even though he uses fists, elbows or kicks, or even jabbing with his fingers, he would only use his spiritual essence to serve as a cover to protect his flesh from being damaged.

The students that fell were not heavily injured; at most they were lightly wounded.

Di Lan was not bloodthirsty, he just treated the students as a polisher of skill in actual combat.

Every time he acted, he would have a clear goal. Whatever the type of method, whichever would let him reach his goal the fastest, he would use it. In other words, he was unscrupulous in doing things.

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The clouds floated over, covering the moonlight. A shadow enveloped over the Mu Yue village.

The watchman banged the bell, prompting people to know that it was already deep in the night – Be careful of fires, be on guard of beast assaults, as well as the possibility of foreign Spirit Masters sneaking into the village.

There were still a lot of lights in the village.

In the Shi family branch home, Mu Shi Chi stayed in his study, the lights radiantly bright. This high authoritative old man spoke with a gentle tone, expressing sympathy as he asked his own grandson Mu Shi Cheng, "I heard you were beaten up by that Di Lan today?"

Mu Shi Cheng had a black right eye, and he angrily said, "Yes, grandpa. That Di Lan was just a petty mortal grade, yet he dared to act so arrogant. He blocked us all at the entrance, not caring about the friendly sentiments of his classmates, and he robbed us of our spirit stones. What's more, the academy just opened one eye and closed one eye over the incident. It was only when Di Lan strode away that the guards hurried over. Grandpa, this time you have to help me expel this angry resentment of mine!"

Instead Mu Shi Chi shook his head. "This is between you and your juniors. You were blackmailed to lose a piece of spirit stone, and you did not suffer heavy injuries – Grandpa cannot act without any justifiable excuse. Even if you were heavily wounded, I will not stand up for you, do you understand why?"

Mu Shi Cheng was stunned. He struggled to think, and after a long while he hesitatingly said, "Grandpa, I think I understand your meaning. You are hoping that I will rely on my own strength to find my way, right?"

"You only understood one aspect." Mu Shi Chi nodded his head and added, "You must remember, you are not just an individual representative, but you are the image on behalf of our Shi family branch. For many years, we have confronted the Mo family branch, and your every move will represent the hope of the future of the Shi family branch. Grandpa may help you in the shadows, but you must stand up and erect a self-reliant and strong image. Otherwise, the elders who are supporting our family will not see the hope for our future, and they will abandon the Shi family."

As he said this, Mu Shi Chi heaved a sigh. "This is also why grandpa helped you to cheat and let you impersonate a silver grade talent. Our Shi family needs a strong successor to hold on to those who are supporting us."

Mu Shi Cheng was then enlightened. "Grandpa, I understand now."

Mu Shi Chi shook his head. "Just understanding won't do any good. You must work hard. Di Lan is just small trouble; next up, you must study hard and train diligently on your basic martial arts and get your dignity back. At the same time, do not forget to work hard on cultivating, promoting to middle stage as soon as possible. The best you can do is to win the position of class monitor, this will be great honor and a kind of help to our Shi family."

"Alright, grandpa!" Mu Shi Cheng replied loudly.

"Heh heh heh, this spirit is how the heir to our Shi branch should be like. Grandson, you must work hard, I will do my best to help you."