Is That A Wisp?

by Srtyi

What if a wisp, with zero EQ about human culture and habits, gains the opportunity to cultivate and finally achieve human form? Now he can enter cities, experience technology, and fight his way to the top, right? In this universe where wisps are seen as nothing more than cultivation resources, a wisp stands up to challenge the wisps destiny! Not without causing a lot of misundersta

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Read Is that a Wisp? Chapter 1 Fated encounter online for free - AllNovelFull

For the cultivators of the planet of Makui, one of the best ways to improve ones own's cultivation faster is by absorbing the energy of wisps, as beings of pure energy, their energy is very pure and easy to assimilate, although its not recommended to do so.

Doesn't matter how pure its energy might be, as an intelligent form of life, wisps are also bound to have a different kind of energy from heaven and earth which still has its defects if used for cultivation, of course, for the other life forms on this planet, be they people or demon beasts, its still a common practice to use wisps.

Sure the constant use of wisps might leave behind a shaky foundation, but for a planet where the strongest cultivators have barely passed the Divine Soul stage, such defects are not considered as important, as long as you reach the Core Formation stage, you can already be seen as a godlike existence by its people.

Since that's the case, why bother with the detrimental side effects of using wisps?

As for how the wisps feel about that, who cares? With such a convenient way of improve one's cultivation faster, almost no one in this planet even see them as a life form anymore.

Because of the discriminated hunt of wisps, their number has plummet to less than a thousandth of its original number from a millennia ago, because of that, the price in the market has skyrocketed which brought even more wisp hunters to their living places, and the forest of Katiu just so happens to be one of those.

In the forest of Katiu, at the northern corner of the Yule continent, a wisp is running for its life, well, that's if you consider floating at high speed a form of running to start with, this is not the first nor the second time that Krune has passed through this situation, the higher the price of wisp on the market, the more hunters Katiu forest had around, by luck or by experience, Krune has extricated himself from them quite a few times.

But today seems like Krune's luck has come to an end, after using his many times sure fire strategy of hiding within the river and letting it's current carry him away, he didn't notice that he was already being tracked, in fact, it couldn't even be called bad luck anymore, due the small number of wisps remaining, the hunters have developed several new ways and tools for wisp hunting, with so few of them available, the hunters can't afford to let wisps escape anymore, they are worth way too much now, it has already become a market where the demand is too high and even if you have the money you could still end up with nothing.

Krune didn't know how the hunters kept finding him time and time again, after a full day of pursuit he was already starting felling tired, even if wisps are beings of energy, they still need to absorb spiritual energy from the heaven and earth which can be considered as their food, but he had no time to do that at all.

Finally, the hunters had led him to a dead end, he could already hear their approach, during the hunt he heard they cursing at him several times every time he escaped, but what really made him hate them was the ways how they addressed him.

"Fuc, this bag of money is too slippery..."

"The floating gold bar is here, after him!"

"Ahhh! My promotion ticket escaped again!"

Unwillingness!

Just because I was born as a wisp?

Why everyone only sees me as nothing more than cultivation resource or money?

What did I do to deserve it? Why?!

I have always fled, I always thought that as long as I kept fleeing I would survive, but in the end all that matters is power!

A bulk hunter around his thirties walked from behind a tree, a smile on his face.

"Hehe! Little guy, you gave us a lot of trouble, you know?"

After saying that, several more figures appeared around him, he truly had no where to go anymore.

he couldn't help but think.

'Seems like this is really the end now, I might as well dissipate my core, it will be better than become someones cultivation tool. If reincarnation really exists, I'll make sure that I won't flee anymore, I will become strong and definitely show to everyone that you can't just disregard me just because I'm a wisp!'

The hunter noticed that the wisp's energy started to fade away and gave a devil smile.

"Trying to suicide in front of us? How could we let you go just like that? Your value is way too big for us to allow you to do that."

"Throw the spiritual net!"

This spiritual net was made specially for the wisp hunting, it definitely wasn't the first time that a wisp had decided to dissipate their core instead of being captured, so the the hunter clans have long since developed this spiritual tool capable of completely seal the wisp's ability of control energy, stopping them from being able to dissipate themselves.

Krune's mind went blank for a second, he tried to avoid the net, he definitely wouldn't allow to himself to become someone else cultivation bead!

But the hunters were prepared, they were expecting that he was going to dodge and trowed even more nets, completely sealing off all escape routes.

Just as the one of the nets was about to fall over him, Krune heard a childish voice coming from behind.

"You baddies! How could you do that with such a little cute guy?!"

Instantly, Krune felt a wave of energy pass trough him to strike the spiritual net, the net immediately turned into powder, soon being blow away by the wind.

The hunters face paled, its not like them themselves cant destroy the spiritual net, but let alone being able to do it without being close to it, even if they were, there is absolutely no way they could crush it to powder, to do something like that they would need to be at the very least at the Core Formation stage and that still might not be sufficient.

Soon they saw a little girl, no more than 9 or 10 years old coming flying from behind the wisp, her face truly showing how angry she was, but in Krune's eyes, he couldn't help be think how cute she looked, Krune is a wisp, not even a human to start with, for him to think the she looks cute one could already imagine that although very young, this little lady was sure to become a real beauty in the future.

She had long hairs, a white and very smooth skin, with a little of a child fat that every child has around that age that didn't diminish her cuteness.

The hunter leader soon came back to himself and immediately bowed.

"This little Lady, is there something this Shu can help you with?"

The little lady was fuming.

"Why are you bulling him? Cant see that he's afraid?"

The hunters and the leader were taken aback!

'We are wisp hunters, of course we didn't come here to invite it for a cup of tea, right?'

Obviously, the leader only kept this thoughts for himself, that girl in front of him can totally crush them to a pulp with just a finger!

"We didn't know that this little guy was this lady's friend, we deeply apologize!"

"All of you, quickly apologize to this lady and her little friend"

The other hunters immediately understood the situation, their leader is a 7th stage Qi Condensation cultivator, for his attitude to change 180 degrees like that one can already imagine how much stronger that 9 to 10 years old little lady is in comparation with their leader, not to mention, for a girl as young as her to be this strong, they don't need to think much to know that she definitely has a very fearsome background.

All the hunters quickly apologized, they wouldn't dare not do so!

The hunter leader looked back at the girl with a smile.

"Little lady, we wont bully him anymore, I hope you can let us go."

"Hmph!"

"Since it looks like you all regretted your actions I will let you go, don't do that anymore!"

The Hunter leader didn't dare to rebuke

"Of course, of course! Everyone we are going back!"

The hunter immediately left, one of the leader's subordinate couldn't help but whisper.

"Lord Shu, who is that girl?"

"I don't know, but she isn't someone we can afford to provoke, not her, not her background, listen up, we didn't see anything today, do you all understand?"

"Yes!"

Back there at the wisp and girl place, she looked back at Krune with a smile.

"Alright, they wont do bad things with you anymore. My name is Wang Feifei, what's your name?"

Krune was still spacing out with all that happened, a second ago he was about to become a cultivation resource but out of no where he got saved by a child, what are the chances of such thing happen?

Krune wanted to answer the little girl's question but just as he was about to do so he heard an old man's voice from his side.

"Feifei, the space ship repairs are over, time to go"

Krune almost had a hard attack! Where the hell did this guy come from?

On the other side, Feifei looked sad.

"Already? We just landed a few hours ago, I haven't had time to move around at all!"

The old man quickly scolded her.

"Feifei, that's not how a lady of the Wang clan should behave, when we get back you can play as much as you want, but for now, we should keep going, we are still far away. Don't make me get in contact with your father."

As soon as she heard about her father she stopped and just nodded, she's very afraid of her father and didn't dare make him angry, she was about to just leave when she remembered the wisp beside them.

"Uncle, if I go just like that those baddies will bully him again, he can't defend himself, can we bring him with us?"

Krune's mind felt like he was struck by lighting!

'Me? For real?'

Krune couldn't believe what he heard, have you at least asked my opinion?

Although he thought that, he didn't say anything, he knows very well that this is a once in a life time chance, the girl and the man seemed to be from a very powerful background, maybe they are from 'that' Wang clan, if he goes with them he will not have to fear being hunted anymore! But at the same time, thinking back at his 3 years of life were he just fled, he couldn't help but think.

'Is it really okay to just flee again? Didn't I just decide that if I had the opportunity I would definitely become stronger? Show everyone that a wisp can also achieve great things? Sure, I thought that it would be in my next reincarnation, but if he used this reason to flee again, that would be just an excuse!'

The old man looked at him and didn't say anything, he could more or less tell what the wisp was thinking due to his higher realm. But then again, he decided that he wouldn't care, it's just a wisp, if he brings it with them at least the little girl will stop throwing a tantrum now and then, so he simply nodded.

The girl immediately became joyful, and looked back at the wisp.

"Little guy, come with us, I won't let any baddies bully you anymore."

Although Krune was conflicted, he started to move in the direction of the spaceship with them, it was close by so it would only take a few minutes to arrive. But deep down, his mind was still in fighting with his real desires.

'Is this really what I want? I've been pursued for life, everyday I just wanted to stay out of trouble, if I go with them, will it prove anything? Am I not simply running away again?'

The closer they got to the ship, the bigger the conflict in his mind.

At distance, Krune could see the Wang clan space ship, on it's side, the Wang Clan insignia.

Even for Krune, who lived in this forest, the name of the Wang Clan was something that he also knew about, this is one of the biggest clans of the western protectorate, but that didn't diminish his stormy mind.

The ship was enormous, the crew could be seen running everywhere finalizing the last steps before take off.

Finally, just when they were about to board the ship, Krune stopped, the girl and the old man looked back at him confused.

Krune gathered all the courage he could find to feeble say his next words.

"I can't go."

The Old man and girl duo looked at him surprised, specially the old man, does this wisp even know what kind of opportunity is him throwing away? The Wang clan is one of the biggest clans of the western protectorate with hundreds of sectors under it's banner! Even if he comes from an 'even dogs don't wanna piss at' planet, he's bound to know about the Wang clan, right? The planet of Makui just so happens to be one of its properties.

If Krune could smile at moment he would definitely be showing a bitter one, but finally, that feeling that was crushing him the moment he started moving in the direction of ship seemed to simply disappear.

He looked back at the little lady

"Miss Feifei, I haven't told you my name yet, I'm called Krune, we wisps are born from the energy of heaven and earth, so we don't have parents to speak of, and because of this we also don't have a family name, even the name Krune is something I thought myself."

"I will be eternally grateful for what you did for me, but I can't go with you, I know about the Wang clan, I know what kind of opportunity I'm leaving behind but I can't go, I'm unwilling! During all my short life I've been pursued by wisp hunters, wisp are great cultivation resources and I learned about that the worst way possible, by seeing the already few existent wisp being taken away, being regarded as money, resources and so on."

The little lady was indeed too young, all those words made her puzzled, but she could at least feel the little guys heart, a wounded heart.

But the one really surprised was the old man, he is an expert, as someone assigned to protect the little lady of the Wang clan he definitely was one of the big shots out there, because of his extremely high realm he could tell that that wisp wasn't lying, he couldn't help but change his impression about this wisp a little.

"I'm unwilling! I don't want to flee like this, I finally decided to get back at them, to show those hunters and everyone else that I'm not just some cultivation resource, I want to prove that I can be just as strong, that we also have dreams and feelings.

If I go with you an easy life will probably be waiting for me, but I'm unwilling, an easy life is not what I want anymore."

"Miss Feifei, senior, I'm sorry but I can't go with you. Krune will remember this favor for the rest of his life and if there comes a day where this weak wisp is able to pay it back, this little one will definitely do so."

Feifei looked dejected and was about to argue when the old man whispered to her.

"Feifei, I know that you want to argue but he probably wont change his mind if you talk, so let me give it a try first."

He looked back at Krune with a stern face, his impression of the wisp got a little better but that was all, someone as old as him has seen such changes way too many times.

"Krune, you said that you want to become strong, to prove yourself, but as a wisp you should know how limited your life span is, usually a person with an average talent would take up to 20 years to breakthrough the Qi Condensation stage and advance to the Foundation Establishment and that's considering they have help and the resources necessary for it. But for wisps 10 years is already the max their life span can go, their only advantage is that with their intelligence they can achieve an adult mind at the age of 3, but that's all, if you don't breakthrough into the next realm you will simply die."

"And I might tell you this since you probably don't know this part.

The amount of life span gained is proportional to the individual initial total life span. Take a human for example, the life span of a human is something around 100 years, there is very few cases where people can pass this limit without breaking into the next realm, when they breakthrough into the Foundation Establishment their life span will be doubled, which mean that they gain another 100 years to try to reach the Core Formation Realm which is obviously much harder than Foundation Establishment."

"But you are a wisp, your life span is only 10 years, even after reaching Foundation Establishment you will gain just another 10 years and you will need to become a Core Formation in just 10 years otherwise you will still die, this is why no one takes wisps seriously, this is why no sect would accept wisps under normal conditions, they don't have a future! Think about it one more time, do you really don't want to come with Feifei? At least you will live in peace during the few years you still have."

Krune was struck by lighting, he knew that wisps had very limited life spans but he probed from the nearby villages and found out that Foundation Establishment cultivators gain a 100 years of extra life span after the breakthrough, but really didn't know this was something proportional to one's initial life span, immediately his mind went in turmoil. 'Should I give up? Foundation Establishment already seemed a far fetched dream and now it looks like even if I reach there it will not have much of a meaning.'

Krune kept silent for a few minutes but neither Feifei or the old man rushed him, even Feifei as young as she looked understood that he got a harsh setback after those words.

After thinking and thinking more that feeling from before, that unwillingness he felt when he was about to be captured started to grow again, until it finally reached the same point as before, there is only one way, only one thing to be said.

'I'M UNWILLING!'

"Thank you senior for the words of advice, but Krune still wishes to try.

I probably, no, I most definitely won't succeeded but as I said before, I simply can't let go, because of this I'm sorry but I can't go."

The old man looked deeply at the wisp in front oh him and after a while he just sighed, Feifei beside him was already tearing up.

Krune also noticed her tears and was taken aback, no one has ever cried because of him, he had no idea about what to do, he was lost and didn't know what to do, but then he remember that as a wisp, a being of energy, he could control the energy around his body and change his own form to look like something else, of course, he would still have the energy like appearance so no one would ever be fooled by that.

He started to play like a sparrow, jump like a frog, he created a mini pool of energy, took the form of a whale and splash the energy around, more and more he kept changing and doing dumb things.

When Feifei saw all of that she burst in laugh, she almost rolled on the ground from laughing so hard, the old man by the side was quite pleased with the wisp's performance, he indeed looked like a strict elder, but for him who had been protecting Feifei ever since she was born he obviously saw her as his own granddaughter and loved her very much.

Krune left a sigh of relief

"Is miss Feifei happy now?"

Feifei looked very happy at moment when suddenly an idea came in mind.

"I am, so I will let you go, but you have to promise me one thing first."

Krune looked a little lost but agreed with it nonetheless.

"As long as I am able to accomplish it miss Feifei can count on me."

Feifei Smile and said.

"When you get strong enough you must come and marry me, only me, I wont accept any other woman, and I do not allow you to die, you have to come or I won't forgive you."

Both Krune and the old man were taken aback, did she hear anything that was said just a while ago? The chances of such a thing to happen is as difficult as ascend to the heavens.

And what is this talking about marrying? Both him and the old man thought the same, he's just a wisp, the Wang Clan would never accept such bullshit.

The old man quickly scolded

"Feifei, cut the crap, whats this marrying thing you talking about, you are just a child, do you even know what a marriage means? Besides, he's just a wisp, let's forget about the fact the he will probably not even get to such realm in the future, even if he does do you think your father would permit that?"

The old man could also have said that you can't marry a wisp since it wasn't man or woman, but then he remembered that all non human like life forms can achieve the human form once their cultivation is higher enough, simply put, the weaker the type of life form, the earlier they can change into human form, for divine beast for example, they can change into their human form at the void breaking realm.

But what about wisps?

Foundation Establishment! They are so weak that they can immediately change into their human form as soon as they do their first realm breakthrough is done, their gender will be decided according to their way of thinking, and this wisp is bound to be a man 100% sure!

It's not like there has never been Foundation Establishment wisps before, and with Feifei status, it would be way to easy for her to find about it.

Feifei did not give up and started a tantrum

"I don't care! Krune at least is much funnier than all those annoying guys father keeps forcing me to meet, I don't like any of them, Krune is much better!"

Krune was lost at words, then he suddenly started to laugh, his heart, or better, his core felt warm like never before, he couldn't help but think 'this little lady probably doesn't even know the importance of those words.'

Feifei and the old man looked strangely at him, Krune looked back at Feifei and said.

"Haha! Sure, I'll make sure to become so strong enough that even your father will have nothing to complain about, In this Krune's life he will only love Wang Feifei and no one else!"

"I promise!"

Let alone the old man, even the crew behind looked at Krune strangely. Some started to laugh, others just snorted or looked at him with blatant disdain, they thought that this wisp was definitely looking for a beating.

But contrary to what they expected, the old man just shook his head and didn't say anything.

Why should he care? It's just a wisp, there is no need to pay attention to what he says. Not to mention, Feifei is only a child, she will probably forget about that in a few days. Even if she doesn't, she will definitely see it as a joke when she grows up.

On the other side, Feifei was as happy as ever.

"You said it, you can't go back on your word."

"Of course!"

In fact, even Krune himself didn't believe at the moment that he would get there. Still, he now has a reason to try hard, a reason to stop fleeing, even though he believes that she will soon forget about him, it doesn't matter. The more he looked at the smiley Feifei, the better he felt.

But then, Feifei asked something that he didn't expect.

"To get strong, you need a good cultivation technique, which one you are using at the moment?"

The old man just gave him a side glance. With his realm, he could totally tell that this wisp doesn't cultivate any technique what so ever. He could see that he was still at the 2nd stage of the Qi Condensation, and that was totally done through the average accumulation of energy that all wisps are used to do.

Krune was taken aback by the question. It's not that he doesn't know what those techniques are, by following then one's cultivation can go faster and higher. Still, he is a wisp, what technique is there to talk about? From all the wisps he met in his 3 years of life so far, not a single one of them had ever cultivated using a technique. They basically just accumulated energy like any other wisp, that was all.

Feeling a bit embarrassed, Krune answered.

"Well, we wisps are really too weak with minimal life spans, so I've never heard of a technique that a wisp could use, so I don't cultivate any."

The girl didn't expect that.

"But without one, there is no way you can ever get strong. If you rely on the accumulation of energy alone even, I can tell you won't get anywhere."

Krune could just reply.

"There is no other way, I will just have to think about something else."

Feifei looked back at the old man.

"Uncle Feng, is there a cultivation technique that we could let him try?"

The old man already expected such a question and didn't think much of it. Now that it got to this point and he knew that Krune wasn't coming, he wants to get over with it as soon as possible. With a flip of his hand, a scroll appeared on it, which he simply tossed at Krune.

"This is the only technique that I know that could be used by a wisp. The problem of wisps is the fact that different from most of the other life forms, they don't have meridians. Because of that, the big majority of cultivation techniques are useless for them, and that is still true even after acquiring the human form."

Krune was ecstatic! He had never hope ever to find a cultivation technique that works for wisps too. As a wisp, he knows all too well the difference between him and the others. The fact that there is even one that works for them is already a miracle in his eyes.

Uncle Feng noticed that and wasn't going to say anything else when Feifei intervened.

"But uncle Feng, isn't that one of the most common cultivation techniques out there? Father said that there is nothing worth praising on it and that only poor cultivators would use it at the start. Isn't there anything better?"

"There isn't, it's not that I don't want to help but that there is no way to help, without meridians how can a cultivation technique even be used? Be happy that this Myriad Energies technique even works."

Uncle Feng just said that and turned to enter the ship.

"Say your goodbyes because we are leaving in a few minutes, by the way, my full name is Su Feng."

In fact, there were two things he didn't say, first because this is a very common technique mostly used at the start of the cultivation path for poor cultivators. If Krune could leave this forest without being hunted, it wouldn't be long before he found about this cultivation technique.

The second one is that although everyone considered it ordinary and easy to get, there was one thing that no one was ever able to find about it. How exactly did the creator of this technique make it work without meridians?

It follows a totally different path than any other one.

Krune didn't mind, he already got much more than he could ever expect today. His life was saved, got acquainted with someone from the Wang clan, and got a cultivation technique that, although ordinary, it still works for wisps. Finally, it seems like he got a fiance?

Of course, just like Su Feng, Krune knows that it will be almost impossible for that to really happen.

Still, at least he has an objective, which is enough for now, he might not succeed, but he will definitely try.

By the time he came back from his thoughts, Su Feng had already disappeared, so Krune simply expressed his gratitude mentally to him.

Feifei knew it was time to go, in her childish mind she really believed they would meet again.

"Krune, you must definitely come! After you get there, I won't need to get to know all those pampered young masters that my father wants me to see. They are all too boring, Krune is much cuter and funnier."

Krune couldn't help but chuckle. She really has no idea what marriage really is about. But that's okay, even if she forgets about it or just treat it as a childish thought, later on, that won't matter. It's okay as long as he remembers. Of course, he is not expecting that he will marry even if she remembers anyway.

"Alright! I will definitely do my best to get there. It will probably take a long time, but I won't give up. You can count on me."

Before leaving, Feifei left for him a device and explained how the universe worked. It wasn't anything extraordinary, just a compile of information. Since Krune was going to visit her, he at least had to know what planets, stars, and the universe are. And this device had a lot of information like that. Of course, from where Feifei came, this kind of thing could be bought basically everywhere, and it was quite cheap.

With that, they gave their farewells. Feifei was heading to the ship while Su Fend had already embarked on it. There were only a few last members of the crew outside finalizing the last steps to take off. No one noticed, but just at that moment, something flew out of Feifei's glabella and entered Krune's core. One must understand that the cultivation difference between Krune and Feifei is like the difference between heaven and earth. It wasn't even worth to mention! Because of this, even Krune himself didn't notice anything.

Inside, uncle Feng was just hearing his subordinate commenting.

"Master Feng. Is it really okay to let that wisp go after what he said? Master Wang won't be happy if he finds about it."

Su Feng replied as if it was nothing.

"Why would he? It's just a wisp. If Krune was one of those boys from the big clans, then sure, he might have said something. But he definitely won't give even a second thought about the matter.

Considering who said that, he will just take it as another one of his daughter's crazy child talks. As for me, it would be beneath myself to make a move on such a weakling."

The subordinate heard that and didn't say anything more.

Outside, Krune was looking at the Airship taking off. He doesn't know when he will be able to leave the planet nor if he would ever be. But since things have got to this point, there is only one way to go now, and that is forward.

After that, Krune found a place to hide. It was a waterfall, and behind it, there was just enough space for him to stay. But that was enough, he took the information device that Feifei gave him and started memorizing everything. The device only had information about the universe. It explained how it worked, like what are planets, stars, black holes, etc. But it was still an eye-opener for Krune. He really lived at the bottom of the well.

After finishing memorizing everything, Krune threw the device away. It would be annoying to carry it with him anyway. Not to mention that wisps are extremely intelligent. Once Krune learned something, he would never forget as long as he willed so. As for studying the contents, Krune would take his time to do it. While he is cultivating, for example, he could use the time to access those memories and comprehend them. He is confident that he won't need to use too much time to understand everything, at least not until he can grasp the basics.

A few days later, Krune was still hiding behind the waterfall while scrolling through the Myriad Energies technique. After fully memorizing the contents, he came to understand why it worked for wisps. It turns out that it wasn't that the method could be used without meridians, but that it merely has no use for meridians to start with.

In fact, although all races could practice this one, it seemed like it was tailor-made for wisps. Instead of using the meridians, the cultivator had to manipulate the energy in his body to create a thing called pseudo energy meridians. Which are made of energy themselves and will disappear when you stop cultivating. That's why the meridians that one was born with had no use since this technique only worked through the energy meridians. Your own true meridians would not be able to absorb the spiritual energy while this technique was activated.

The reason is that because when a cultivator absorbs energy from heaven and earth, he changes the energy properties in accordance with his own. Only then it is deposited into the dantian or demon core. But the Myriad Energies technique follows a different path. It absorbs the energy as it is and stores it inside without making any conversion. The conversion itself only happens inside the dantian or demon core. This is why this technique can't be used with any other method since they will conflict with each other and probably cause a cultivation deviation.

Krune felt that this technique was made for wisp precisely because of that. Since he doesn't have true meridians, the pseudo energy meridians are the only ones that he would be able to use to start with.

That was also why almost no one used this technique for an extended period of time. In the end, by using real meridians, you will have faster results in your path of cultivation since most of the life forms are born with over a hundred of them. And unfortunately, the Myriad Energies technique can only allow you to create up to 9 pseudo energy meridians.

The reason why the other races even used this technique at all was that they need first to open their real meridians for use. And for that, they need spiritual energy, and that's where this technique comes in hand. After a few months of cultivation, a cultivator with average talent would still be able to open more than 9 real meridians for use. After that, they would cast this technique aside since it loses its purpose.

Of course, there were several other ways to open the channels of the real meridians. Take big clans, for example. They would have their elders inject spiritual energy into the body of their offsprings. It would help them opening those channels, which is a much faster and reliable way to do it.

Krune put his thoughts aside and started with the pseudo meridians' creation. As a being of energy, he obviously had it easy. By the end of the day, he had already created a full working meridian, life forms of blood and flesh could do that too but would definitely take several times longer.

Once a meridian is successfully created, it will dissipate after the cultivator stops cultivating. But the next time he starts again, it will only take a few minutes to reform that energy meridian. It's just like riding a bicycle, once you learn it, you will never forget.

The time passed, and just like that, a week went by.

Back inside the Wang Clan Spaceship, Su Feng was inside Feifei's room. He then sent out some spiritual energy, and a barrier appeared around them. After that, he looked at Feifei, who was playing around and finally decided to ask.

"Feifei, even though you are quite the playful girl, that was a lot coming from you, especially that marriage thing. What is happening here? What did you see?"

Feifei kept playing while laughing, it was as if she didn't hear Su Feng at all.

"Feifei!"

This time, Feifei answered.

"I didn't 'see' anything."

Uncle Feng didn't believe it and kept pressing.

"There is no need to keep a secret from me, you should know that as well. There is no way I would betray my words from back then. So why can't you tell me?"

Feifei finally stopped playing and looked at him.

"Uncle Feng, I know very well that you would never do me any harm. That's why I'm not hiding anything from you. I really can't see anything about him at all. And that's what caught my attention."

This time, Su Feng was really taken aback.

"Is that even possible?"

Feifei laughed again and simply answered.

"Seems like it is. That's why it will be very fun! As for this marriage promise, I will hold onto that until he comes for me. I won't give him to anyone! I'm not lying, I liked him very much. He is funny and cute, but above all, I can't see anything."

She then made a playful smile.

"I even gave him my mark."

Su Feng's heart almost stopped at that moment.

"You can't be serious!"

Feifei just laughed after that, but Su Feng couldn't find it funny at all.

"If the Wang Clan finds out that your mark is gone, they will flip the universe upside down looking for it."

Feifei didn't mind that at all.

"I trust that he will be able to deal if this bit of trouble; otherwise, he wouldn't be the one I chose."

Uncle Feng sighed and didn't say anything else.

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The hard work paid off! After a week of cultivation, Krune is already able to use five pseudo energy meridians, which also helped him achieving the 3rd stage of the Qi Condensation. In fact, because he had been in the 2nd stage for a long time, he was already more or less close to this small breakthrough. But then again, without the Myriad Energies Technique, he would still take another month to get there.

But instead of feeling happy, Krune is now facing a huge problem, there is not enough spiritual energy!

As a wisp, he obviously needs more energy than the other races, not to mention that part of the energy absorbed is used for his living. Wisps can be said to eat energy for food, which will inevitably take a toll on his own cultivation. That's one more advantage of the blood and flesh races, all the energy absorbed can be used for cultivation alone while wisps have to spare some of it to keep living.

It's not like Krune doesn't know where to get it, but that implies going further into the Katiu forest. Wisp hunters are not the only ones Krune needs to pay attention to. Demon beasts also know that wisps can help them get stronger. If there is an advantage, then that would be the fact that due to the beasts' low cultivation realm, they still have rather low intelligence.

But the further you get into the forest, the higher their cultivation and intelligence become. Of course, it also shows that their higher cultivation is also due to the higher spiritual energy concentration. Quite a few more wisps are born there instead of the outer sides for the same reason. Unfortunately, a lot of them are eaten before they can leave that dangerous place.

Another problem is that wisps are quite eye catching, so hiding is an issue for them too.

Krune started to ponder about this issue, if he stayed here, it still shouldn't be too hard to get to the 4th stage of Qi Condensation. With five pseudo energy meridians, his cultivation speed has increased multiple times. Not to mention that he has another four meridians to create too! He should be able to get to the next stage in more or less a month.

But the problem is that his time is limited. He still doesn't know if the pseudo energy meridians will give him enough cultivation speed to beat his life span depletion.

After thinking a little more, Krune made up his mind. If he wants to get strong faster, then he can't keep avoiding this kind of issue. Otherwise, his life span, which is already small to start with, will end, and he won't be able even to regret his decision. But before that, he needs to think of a way to get rid of enemies, and the best way is learning spiritual skills.

Krune, of course, doesn't have any skill techniques. If he wants to use his energy for attack purposes, he will have to use the most straightforward methods at the moment. But if there is something good about his three years of fleeing from wisp hunters, that is the fact that he has seen them using all types of skills!

And one of them just so happens to be wind blades. Before, Krune didn't have enough spiritual energy to spare when he was at the 2nd stage. But now that he had a breakthrough, his spiritual energy is more abundant. It should be enough to cast a few of them.

For the next five days, Krune kept creating the new meridians. Also, every time he was back to his peak, he would use his spiritual energy to practice throwing winds blades. At first, it was very clumsy, it could barely reach ten meters and didn't leave behind any marks on the targets. He had never tried it before. So to manipulate the energy of his body to gather the wind, compress it several times, and release it in the form of a blade took quite a toll on him.

But if there is one thing that will never betray you, that thing is definitely hard work! Krune wind blades now could already reach a distance of fifty meters, and if shot at ten or lesser meters of range, he was even able to cut a small tree with two or three blades.

During the time he was recovering his energy for wind blades practice, he didn't simply wait. Krune used that time to create another two pseudo energy meridians. And now he is just two short from the nine possible to achieve with the Myriad Energies technique. Krune didn't feel anything strange about it. He thinks that since he is an energy being, it goes without saying that he should be able to do this much. But if anyone were to know that he was able to create a total of seven energy meridians in just thirteen days, their eyes would pop out from their sockets!

One must know that for any other race, they would take an entire month to create two or at most three meridians. The impressive thing here is the fact that even if it was another wisp, they would at most create five or six in the same period. Krune has no idea how shocking of a feat he has done. It doesn't matter if it is a talent or his vast experience in life and death situations. The fact is that no one has ever achieved this much proficiency in the Myriad Energies technique before.

Feeling that it was about the time for him to go, Krune left the waterfall behind and started his journey into the inner parts of the Katiu forest. Once he gets there, he won't need to be afraid of wisp hunters anymore. After all, the inner parts have Foundation Establishment beasts, and the big majority of hunters are usually around the 5th to the 9th stage of the Qi Condensation. It's rare to find a Foundation Establishment hunter around, and even if there is, they will not risk a battle with the beast of the inner parts. Unless they are on a mission or have some other objective.

Even though Krune made a beeline to the inner parts of the forest, in the last three days, he still got pursued by two hunter groups. Fortunately, there are very few hunter groups with a member capable of putting tracking markers. So those two groups obviously didn't have anyone of this type, and with his rich experience, it was quite easy for him to leave them behind.

Krune now could already feel the concentration of spiritual energy growing the further he went. And from here onward, it will be harder to find any hunting group. In exchange, he could feel the auras of demon beast more often.

One of the good things about being a wisp, is that as an energy being, he could feel other energies that are not part of the environment around him. Even without developing his spiritual sense yet, Krune could feel and pass far away from those beasts. Another thing is that wisps that are not in their human forms don't have a smell to start with, so the demon beasts can't track him.

But that is only for now, the higher the enemy's cultivation, the harder it is to feel their energy. This is basically the disparity of cultivation levels working its wonders, so Krune had to be even more cautious the further he went.

After another five days, Krune finally arrived at the division between the outer and inner parts of the forest. His ability to feel the demon beasts energies is almost gone already too. From here onwards, he will definitely not find any beast under the 5th stage of Qi Condensation easily, and those are just the weak ones.

First, he needs to find a place to hide. The spiritual energy around him is already enough to speed up his cultivation by at least four times. He is planning first to creating the two last meridians and reach the 5th stage before setting off to look for a spiritual vein. Those veins are usually occupied by 7th stage QI condensation beasts or higher.

But even though their intelligence is better than those of lower grades, they are still a far cry from an adult wisp mind. Krune is not underestimating them, but now he is quite confident that as long as he plays well, he will be able to get a spirit vein for himself.

There is one thing that Krune must do no matter what before leaving the Katiu forest, and that is to reach the Foundation Establishment. That way, he can turn into his human form. If a wisp like him dares to step out in his wisp form, it will be a wonder if he can get near to the closest city without being caught.

But things are different when you achieve your human form. Unless the other side's cultivation is much higher than oneself, they will not be able to tell that Krune is a wisp. The most they will be able to see is that Krune isn't really a human but a demon beast in its human form. And a demon beast with a human form is bound to be at a high level of cultivation, so no one will try to find trouble with it.

In fact, demon beasts in human form walking in the streets aren't anything uncommon. As long as they don't cause any ruckus in the city, the guards won't do anything to them. Not to mention that those beasts usually come with a lot of spirit stones from their lairs, and those spirit stones are basically the universe's currency. Different from gold, silver, or copper, spirit stones are accepted everywhere.

If the city guards start to capture or kill those demon beasts, no more demon beasts will come out of their lairs. And the spirit stone available on the markets will definitely fall because of that, so no lord of any city wishes to see that happen.

Krune advanced very carefully while trying to keep aware of the surroundings. At first, everything was going okay. Krune was trying to find a river since if anything went wrong, he could still try to dive into it again to escape. There weren't many trees around him at the moment, so he had to take extra care not to be seen. Of course, by feeling the demon beasts energy, he avoided quite a few battles. Still, he never thought that danger would be coming from above.

"Crowww!"

Krune froze for a moment, and when he looked above, he could see a dark feathered bird diving straight at him. He immediately recognized it, the four-winged demon crow, a demon beast with cultivation that varies between the 5th and 6th stages of Qi Condensation.

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Knowing that he had no time to waste, Krune immediately took action. His cultivation is lower, but he has his intelligence backing him up. When the demon crow was around 50 meters of distance, Krune let out two wind blades, and at the same time, he started to retreat. He knows that wind blades shot at such range can at most leave very small wounds that are hardly able to change anything. But that was his plan, to be able to defeat the crow, he will need first to make it lower its guard.

Also, he needs to save his spirit energy, since he can't shoot too many blades due to the low amount of available for him at his level. So he needs to finish it fast! And to guarantee his victory, the blades will need to be used at ten meters or less. Ideally, under five meters. Also, if he makes too much of a ruckus, he might attract even more demon beasts.

The problem was if he used his blades at five meters or less, he won't have time to dodge the attack even if he hits the demon beast. So Krune was trying to buy as much time as possible while thinking about a plan. Once he uses his real killing move, he must succeed. If not, the demon crow will put up its guard, and he will probably be finished.

Sure enough, the crow felt the wind blades hitting its body but completely disregarded it. The closer it got, the more nervous Krune became. But he kept up to his plan, and he shoots another three blades. Still, this time he purposely lowered its attack power so that the beast won't feel any difference when the blades hit. As expected, the same thing happened, but that was when Krune noticed something. Although the wind blades didn't threat the demon crow, it still slightly made it change its route, which was immediately corrected by the later.

'I never thought about using the wind power this way and I don't know if it will work, but it will have to make do.'

Although it took a lot of time to explain, in fact, it all happened in just a few seconds.

Krune finally stopped and readied five wind blades, that is the biggest number he can shoot at once while keeping enough spirit energy for one last maneuver. At the same time, by his side, the power of wind started to compress. If one didn't pay attention, they would think that Krune was preparing a sixth wind blade to attack.

The demon bird didn't think anything about it. Due to its higher level of cultivation, it indeed had a higher intelligence compared with ordinary beasts. Fortunately, it really was not a match for an adult wisp. After feeling the amount of damage inflicted by the first five wind blades, it totally threw caution to the back of its mind.

20 meters...

15 meters...

10 meters...

'Keep calm, keep calm. I only have one chance. If I screw this up, I'm finished. Keep waiting, five meters, it must be five meters! Otherwise, I can't guarantee success.'

Krune kept reminding himself, one can't blame him for his nervousness, until today he would flee at first sight of danger. But today, he had to fight, and he must win!

In fact, Krune had no other choice, his opponent has higher cultivation and is a demon bird capable of flying. Not to mention that there are very few trees or other objects around which he could use at his favor. Also, Krune wanted to prove to himself that all that he had said that day in front of Su Feng and Wang Feifei wasn't just talk.

The demon crow quickly approached, in its eyes the wisp is already in its belly having its energy being absorbed and raising its own strength.

5 meters!

"Now!"

Immediately, five wind blades made with 90% of all his remaining spirit energy shoot forward. At the same time, the sixth ball of compressed air by his side exploded! It wasn't a wind blade, but the principle was the same as one. It generated a strong shock wave that blasted Krune out of the way of the demon crow.

That was the only method he could think to get away from an almost point-blank attack while using his killing move under five meters. It doesn't matter how fast he could be, the difference of cultivation levels was too big for his speed match the time frame to dodge on his own.

The four-winged demon crow was alarmed. A sensation of immense danger passed through its body, it then tried to dodge the wind blades. Still, it was too late, the blades were already right in front of it. Immediately, its eyes went red, and a savage look appeared on its face! Since it can't dodge, it might as well take the brunt and bring the wisp down together. But it never expected that that wind blade beside that wisp wasn't a wind blade at all. As soon as it made its mind, that air compressed ball explode right after the wind blades had been shot, blasting the wisp away.

Blood splattered on the air, and feathers flew up in the sky. Three blades hit the right wings while another one hit the left ones. Together with the shock wave that blasted Krune to the right, it was possible to avoid being hit by the demon crow completely! The last wind blade was shot a little after the first four blades, but just before the shock wave. Krune had made up his mind to hit a sure kill blow, and for that, he had to guarantee that the last wind blade hit the right place at the right time. The last blade successfully hit the neck, and one head was separated from its body. The head and the body of the four-winged demon crow stumbled ahead for twenty-some meters before finally stopping.

Krune saw this sight and felt relieved that it worked out. He used everything he had to the point that he was feeling dizzy. His energy core was in absolute turmoil and almost empty. Even his energy form was a lot smaller and feeble, it would take some time until it stabilized again. But he can't wait here, the smell of blood is sure to attract the nearby demon beasts, he must leave straight away; otherwise, he won't have the chance later.

Krune gave one last glance at the corpse of the four-winged demon crow and was just about to leave when he noticed something. The demon crow is dead, but different from before, he now can feel a high concentration of spiritual energy coming from it. The problem is, with the four-winged demon crow's higher level of cultivation, it should be very hard for Krune to feel this energy. But he just had to think for a second to understand what was happening. The demon crow is now dead, so it can't control the energy in its body any more, which means that now he can easily feel it.

Krune looked back and noticed that close to the place where the neck was severed, there was a small bead. Turns out that when he used his last wind blade to cut the crow's neck, it partially cut its head too, revealing that small bead. The amount of spiritual energy that Krune could feel from that bead was several times his own. Krune quickly made up his mind since every second counts. He used his control over energy to grab the demon core and swiftly left. Not long after, he could hear several roars, and it was evident that the demon beasts nearby started to fight over the free food. But Krune couldn't care less, he isn't in shape to battle anymore, so he pressed forward, quickly leaving this place.

Krune was quite lucky. With that demon bird corpse attracting the other beasts, it was easier for him to leave the place without alarming any of them. A few hours later, Krune found a small crevice by the side of a mountain wall. He swiftly entered and noticed that this was the entrance of a cave. He then took his time to check around and made sure everything was safe. Because the crevice was too small, there were only a few insects and some small animals that presented no threat to Krune. Due to the entrance's size and the fact that usually the higher the beasts cultivation, the bigger they were, no demon beast could enter this cave.

After ascertaining that there was no danger, Krune started to look around more carefully. The spider webs on the roof and the small sound of water dripping from the stalactites proved that no one had come in here in a very long time. Except for the very small animals on the ground, of course.

Krune went to the bottom of the cave and rested there. He activated his Myriad Energies technique, and in just a minute, all his seven pseudo energy meridians were formed and started to absorb the spirit energy around greedily. He was finally in the inner parts of the Katiu Forest, and the concentration of spiritual energy was much higher than his hiding place back there behind the waterfall. After restoring himself to his peak, he decided to take the next days to form the last two energy pseudo meridians. It was already the night of the fourth day when he finally finished. Now he had all nine meridians that the Myriad Energies technique allowed to be created.

Krune then decided to spend his time to check the crow's demon core. The amount of spiritual energy inside was really amazing, even at his peak, his own core paled compared to this demon core. And since that's the case, he might as well try to absorb it.

Krune has never been a hasty wisp, he could feel that the energy in this core sure was high, but its properties were far from compared with his own. If he tried to absorb it the way it is, his own core energy would go in disarray, and it might even explode if he loses control. He took out a sliver of the demon core's spiritual energy. He then started to convert it to be compatible with his own, and only then absorbed it.

'If I want to absorb it, I will need to convert the energy into one that is compatible with mine first, and I can only do it a little each time. Considering the speed of the conversion, there isn't much of a difference between absorbing the spiritual energy around me and the converted energy from the demon core.'

Krune started to ponder how to hasten the conversion when an idea came in mind.

'The Myriad Energies technique absorbs the spiritual energy as it is, and the conversion is only made inside the dantian or core. But the spiritual energy of heaven and earth is gentle. It causes no harm to them during the conversion. Because of this, I can't use it to absorb the demon core's energy, which can be considered anything but gentle. But why is that? It doesn't matter how I see it. The pseudo energy meridians should be capable of doing the conversion. At the same time, the energy should pass through them just like any other meridian. This technique was obviously created to imitate the other races meridians during the cultivation. So why is it that I have to wait for the energy to reach my core for only then be able to convert it into my own?'

Once this idea sprouted in his mind, it started to take root, and it quickly grew until it occupied all his thoughts.

'Wrong, wrong! It shouldn't be like this, it's definitely wrong!'

Krune kept thinking about the matter and tried a few things. First, he tried using only one meridian to very slowly absorb a sliver of spiritual energy. After he made all nine meridians to work as a single tube. But nothing seemed to work. In the end, it still gave him the same result, no conversion had been made.

Suddenly, Krune's mind lit up!

'Right! It's not that the way to cultivate with this technique is wrong, it's just incomplete! What if the nine meridians are not the final results but only the initial state? First of all, it doesn't make any sense for it to have only nine spiritual energy pseudo meridians. It doesn't matter how proficient I get with it in the future, it will reach a limit. I simply can't compete with the blood and flesh body meridians. The disparity in numbers is way too great, it shouldn't be like this at all!'

Krune's mind was working like he was mad, after getting to this point in his thoughts, it only took a moment for him to reach a conclusion.

'If my conjecture is right, the nine meridians are not their final form. Not to mention that it doesn't make sense for there to be only nine in the first place. Then it means that creating the nine meridians is just the first stage. What probably comes now can only be...

Fusion!'

The nine spiritual energy pseudo meridians are ready, and fusing them would be the last part. That was Krune's idea, but how exactly will he proceed with that? That is another matter entirely. He is pretty sure that his Myriad Energies Technique is incomplete, so he is still lacking the part that shows how the fusion is done. But from what he heard from old man Su Feng, everyone considers this technique a very ordinary one. In that case, he won't be able to find it.

'If I want to fuse all nine meridians, I will have to rely on myself. And since someone was able to create it before, I should be able to repeat it. There is nothing else to do, I can only try it out and see what happens.'

Krune tried to put the nine meridians together. Still, nothing happened. He then put spiritual energy in between and wanted to attract them, but nothing happened either. He also tried to enlarge one and put another inside. Unfortunately, the meridian broke, and he had to reform it again. He attempted to fuse three at a time for later combine the results, but it didn't work as well. After a full day of trial and fail, Krune was already running out of ideas.

'Could it be that I'm wrong? There is no such thing as fusion, and this technique was really made to be used with only nine meridians? No, that's definitely not it, I'm missing something!'

Krune spaced out a little and looked up, trying to get more ideas when suddenly, he noticed one of the spiders building up the web on the roof. The spider was connecting its points one after another. What initially was just a star-shaped thing, slowly started to take the form of real web. Every time the spider circled around the web, it got bigger. It was at that moment that Krune's mind felt like it was struck by lightning!

'Right! It's not that I cannot fuse them, nor is it because I cultivated it wrongly. The first stage is indeed so that I can form the nine spiritual energy pseudo meridians, and that part is right. But that was not for the purpose of fusing them, it was for the purpose of practicing!'

Krune felt like divine enlightenment fell upon him. At first, when he created every single meridian, he would take an entire day or more. But once he knew how to make them, reform them for later use was so easy that he could make them appear in less than a minute!

'Since that's the case, then now I already have all the experience that I need. My meridians are already formed, but they can't be fused since they are a complete product. So I only have one option now...'

In an instant, all nine spiritual energy pseudo meridians broke into countless specks of spiritual light. It wasn't the same as dissipating them for later use, they are totally gone this time. If Krune wanted to reform them, he would need to create all from zero once more. Of course, he wouldn't recreate all nine meridians in one minute, but he definitely would be able to remake them is less than a day. But that was not what he was going to do. The practice time is over, it's time to take the next step!

'What I need to do now is to create all nine meridians at the same time from scratch. But instead of forming them separately, I will need to form and attach them together. I need to use all nine of them to create a single sturdy one. If I'm not wrong, each one of the nine spiritual energy pseudo meridians has its own properties and purpose. If not, why is it that after I formed the first one, I still took more than a day to form the second? If they were exactly the same, it should have been effortless to create the second one, right? If my conjecture is right, they should be able to do the conversion of spiritual energy just like any other natural meridian!'

Krune didn't waste any time, and he started working straight away. At first, as soon as Krune tried to create all nine together, they immediately broke apart. Let alone form the initial shape, they didn't even gather together to start with.

But Krune wasn't dispirited, it was just his first try, and he could tell where it went wrong. It turns out that when he was forming the nine meridians, his own poor control over the process made so that some meridians were forming faster than the others. That created a conflict between their spiritual energies, so that's the first thing he needs to address for his plans to work.

Time went by, and soon two weeks have passed.

Inside the cave, one could see that nine meridians were taking form together. Their energy was pretty much the same, while at the same time, they were attaching themselves with each other and fusing. Krune had already spent an entire hour in this trial, and so far, this was the furthest he got. By now, even if he fails again, it won't matter. Krune is absolutely sure that his conjectures are right. This is how the real form of the Myriad Energies technique should be. It all depends on himself now.

The meridians' formation was practically done. Their energies were harmonizing with each of their properties, and slowly, they came to be a single one. By now, it seemed like there wasn't even a need for Krune to keep the process. They looked like to be attracting each other to the point where one couldn't even say that they first were nine different meridians.

But Krune didn't dare to slack off now. Even if everything seemed to go okay, he would keep giving his assistance for the final step. Even though he can try again later if he fails, there is no reason for him to not strive forward for success now!

'Click'

An hour later, Krune heard something that seemed like it had been attached. It was quite weird. Krune never felt that energy meridians would create such a sound. But he didn't even have time to think about it. Right after that, the spiritual energy of the surroundings started to tremble!

'Brummmm'

Krune was alarmed!

'What's going on?!'

As a wisp and a being of energy, Krune could feel that the spiritual energy around him seems like to be... Excited! Yes, the spiritual energy around him was really excited as if it had found a long lost friend!

Immediately, all the energy of the surroundings started to flow in the meridian that had just been created. That's right, it wasn't coming for Krune, but for the meridian itself!

'So much spiritual energy! And it seems like the shape of the spiritual energy pseudo meridians is getting smaller.'

Krune wasn't seeing things wrong, the bigger single meridian was really getting smaller. Although it was still much bigger than a single spiritual energy pseudo meridian from before, it wasn't like the size of the nine meridians put together. It kept shrinking until suddenly, the meridian started to break apart again, which made Krune's heart sink!

'No, no, no! Why is it breaking?'

But he only had to give it two seconds of thought to immediately understand the reason.

'There isn't enough spiritual energy!'

Krune was frightened, the energy meridian absorbed all the spiritual energy around, and more spiritual energy from the further away came to fill the void. But it wasn't enough! Krune's only chance now was to use the Demon Core that he got from the four-winged demon crow. He really didn't want to use it since he was planning to utilize it for his own cultivation if he succeeded with the new meridian creation.

But there was no more time to hesitate. Krune made up his mind and grabbed the demon core, expecting that its energy would be enough. At the same time, he was afraid. The demon core's spiritual energy is different from the energy of heaven and earth, so it could very well break his new energy meridian apart. But he really was without any other choices now.

For Krune's surprise, not only could the meridians absorb the energy from the demon core, they immediately converted all the spiritual energy coming out of it. Not to mention that the conversion could be said to be almost instantaneous! Krune didn't know, but even natural meridians couldn't possibly convert spiritual energy this fast!

Ten minutes later, the cracks on the meridian disappeared, and it looked normal again. Slowly, the spiritual energy of the surroundings started to calm down. The rate of absorption from the demon core got lower and lowered the more the time passed. Krune finally let out a sigh of relief. It seems like the process of the meridian formation is finally coming to an end.

'Crack'

Krune heard this sound, but he didn't even need to look to know what happened. All the spiritual energy from the demon core was gone, so it broke into powder and scattered on the floor. The demon core that almost cost his own life to obtain disappeared just like that. Krune's felt gloomy but not for long. The flow of spiritual energy from heaven and earth also stopped entirely, and the final process of the meridian formation came to an end.

Just as krune was about to test its new meridian, it suddenly started to shine!

'What is up now? Is it not over yet?'

At the same time, many galaxies away, in a dilapidated cave in the middle of a mountain from an unknown planet, a statue-like old man was sitting in a meditative position. He was totally covered in thick dust, who knows how many years, centuries, or maybe even millenniums haven't he moved? If people don't know any better, they would definitely think he was dead.

But just now, that statue-like old man suddenly opened his eyes. They looked like they could see through anything and anywhere, like nothing in this universe could ever be able to hide away from them.

He then looked at a certain direction, his gaze penetrating into the space-time. The direction he was looking at was, of course, Krune's planet, the Planet of Makui.

The old man was a little surprised and let out a gentle smile. He could see Krune inside the cave looking at the energy meridian, obviously alarmed for not knowing why it is shining at all.

"Haha! So this little friend is a wisp. No wonder, no wonder. The Myriad Energies technique does indeed fit wisps very well, and this one seems exceptionally talented at it."

He then sighed and said.

"I guess there is still hope after all!"

He kept looking for a little longer. One could see expectation on his face, it looked like he had been waiting for Krune for countless years.

"Little friend, do not disappoint this old man."

He then stopped looking and closed his eyes, who knows how long it will be until they are opened again.

Back at Krune's cave. The meridians finally stopped shining and settled again. He couldn't make heads or tails from what happened, he didn't feel anything different after all the brilliance either. He waited a little longer to make sure nothing else was going to occur, but it seems like it was really over this time.

'Phew... Now then, I hope you don't disappoint me. My future accomplishments depend on your performance!'

The meridian's final form was pretty much the same as any of the previous nine pseudo ones, but with almost three times the size of a single one. As he thought, the nine meridians are now one single sturdy meridian, and he could feel the energy of all nine meridians coming from this single one.

Krune calmed himself first and then started to cultivate using his new meridian, he first only absorbed a little bit of spiritual energy in case something went wrong.

To his surprise, that bit of energy was instantly converted and fell into his core straight away. Let alone need to wait to harmonize with the spiritual energy inside his core, it felt like this has always been part of his core spiritual energy to start with. It was added up to his cultivation in an instant.

'Great!'

Krune was ecstatic! Slowly, he started to increase the amount of spiritual energy gathered from the ambient. An hour later, he had already reached the same rate of absorption that his nine meridians could do at the fastest speed. But surprisingly, there was still space for more! Krune kept at it, slowly but surely gathering more and more spiritual energy. It wasn't before two hours later that he finally could feel that the rate of which the meridian could convert the energy had finally reached its limit.

'Amazing! This is already almost three times the speed of my previous nine meridians working together! And this is just the very first one. Once I build more spiritual energy pseudo meridians, it will only get faster! No, wait. This meridian now works in the same way as the natural meridians from the other races. They can't be called pseudo meridians anymore.'

Krune pondered a bit and quickly decided on a name.

'From now on, I'll simply call them spiritual energy meridians or energy meridians for short.'

Krune enjoyed the feeling of success a little more, but it didn't take long for him to calm down.

'This is just the first step. I still have a long way to go. If not for that four-winged demon crow's core, my meridian would have shattered, and it would end up in failure. I can't start the creation of another one now, there is simply not enough spiritual energy here. I will have to stick to my initial plan, I have to break through into the 5th stage of Qi Condensation first. No, with this speed of cultivation, it shouldn't be a problem to breakthrough into the 6th stage.'

'After that, I will look for a low-level spirit vein that doesn't have too strong beasts guarding it and take it for myself. In the process, I should also gather more demon cores. I have the feeling that the more meridians I make, the more spiritual energy will be necessary.'

Krune steadied his mind and put all his focus into cultivating, his luck is finally turning for the better.

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Just like that, two months went by.

On a small crevice on a mountain wall, one could see something coming out. It shines quite a bit, but because it's day time, it doesn't appear too catchy. There is only one race in this forest that looks like that, and they are wisps.

That wisp, of course, was Krune. After this last time in seclusion, he had finally broken through into the 6th stage of the Qi Condensation Realm! This speed would be inconceivable for almost all ordinary cultivators. The only ones capable of matching it would be the cultivators of big clans or sects. It also shows how formidable the true form of the Myriad Energies technique is.

Cultivation wasn't the only thing Krune practiced during the last two months. He also improved his control over the wind element so that it could be used for more things than just wind blades. Krune could now manipulate the wind around him to move twice as faster. With the improvement of his cultivation on top of that, his speed is now at least four to five times higher than what it was when he first entered seclusion. If he had this speed in the battle against the four-winged demon crow, Krune definitely wouldn't need to blast himself away to dodge the demon bird's attack.

Another thing worth to mention is that with his new Spiritual Energy Meridian, his control over the spiritual energy has reached a totally new level. Not only can he absorb spiritual energy much faster, but he can also release and gain control over the tasks applied to it just as fast. This type of control over the spiritual energy should be something that only those at the 9th stage of the Qi Condensation should be able to!

Krune also developed new skills for defense and attack, they are earth element wall and spike!

Well, in fact, there is nothing new about it. Any cultivator wouldn't have too much of a problem to get their hands on an earth element defense skill like those two. The incredible thing about it is that Krune had absolutely no manual or even a shadow of a teacher to help him during the learning time, he learned all by himself!

It's not like other cultivators can't learn this kind of skill by themselves too. However, to do that in just two months without any reference while still having time to breakthrough three small realms, this is just unthinkable!

Krune, of course, had no idea about any of that. He just cared about survival and improvement, he didn't think he did anything amazing.

'With this, I should be able to get one of the low-level spirit veins around the borders of the inner region of the forest. The reason the inner regions have more spiritual energy is exactly because of the greater number of spiritual veins in the place. There is no way that those spirit veins owner beasts could stop the spiritual energy from flowing out, so the concentration here is bigger than outside. Even if I acquire just a low level one, the spirit energy available for me should still be much higher than simply staying in the inner regions.'

Krune then started moving around the borders of the inner region, and thanks to his higher level of cultivation, he could now feel the beasts around him much easier. As long as they are not at the 9th stage of Qi Condensation or higher, he would have no problem in perceiving them ahead of time.

Of course, Krune's idea wasn't to simply avoid battle, he was also looking for lonely beasts of the 6th or 7th stage to practice, he needed their cores after all.

It didn't take long for him to find one. Around 200 meters ahead, he could see a Three-Tailed Demon Leopard drinking water from a pond on the ground. This is an agility type demon beast that usually varies between the 5th to 8th stage of Qi Condensation. In compensation, their attacks are not that strong. A perfect target for him to test his defenses. And this leopard just so happens to be in the 7th stage, one stage higher than himself.

'Since that was the case, I might as well grab it's attention straight away.'

Krune got closer, and when he was at 100 meters of distance, he shot a wind blade. With his higher level of cultivation, the strength, and the distance that he can cast his blades are much higher now. As expected, the demon leopard noticed the incoming attack and immediately dodged. It was clearly mad at the wisp for attacking it, his eyes focused on Krune a 100 some meters away, and it quickly went after him.

Krune already expected that, but he didn't do anything. His aim is to test if he can contend against the leopard with his earth wall and wind movement alone. Using both together should give him the advantage even against the demon leopard.

Unfortunately for Krune, he really lacked experience. He knew that the leopard was fast, but he forgot to think about its reaction speed. When the leopard was just 10 meters away, it launched its claw at the wisp. Krune immediately created an earth wall in front of himself while using wind movement to retreat. But the impact sound against the wall that he was waiting for did not come. On the side, Krune noticed the leopard's figure, it had dodged the wall in the last moment and immediately threw itself at him.

Krune was alarmed! He quickly released the wind compressed ball that was at his side, blasting him and the leopard away from each other in the last second. Krune wasn't an idiot. He had long thought about the possibility that his plans might not work and left that card ready to be used at any time. It turns out that he really needed it.

But it wasn't over. Krune understood why his plans failed, in the end, the difference in experience between him and the leopard was the main factor. As a beast that lived in the inner regions of the Katiu Forest, it had gone through several battles in its life. Even though its intelligence is not that high, it still had sharpened its instincts through life and death struggles along the way.

On the other side, for Krune, who only knew how to flee a while ago, it's not unexpected that he would lose in the first exchange. He had used his earth wall too early and accumulated too much energy trying to create a sturdy one. Against a demon beast with such fast speed and reaction time like the demon leopard, this kind of mistake could have been fatal.

The leopard got even angrier. The blast was simply a shock wave that separated it from Krune, it had no attack power to speak of. It then pounded at the wisp once more. Krune wasn't slow either! He learned his lesson, and this time, he waited for the leopard to be right in front of him. Of course, just in case, he readied another wind compressed ball. The leopard didn't care about any of that, though. Just as it was about to reach Krune, an earth wall appeared right in front of it again. This time, Krune's move was much faster, and that's because he didn't try to create a super-strong wall but focused on the speed of the skill.

The formation of the wall was so abruptly that the leopard claws hit it right in the middle. The wall trembled and almost crumbled. The leopard's attack might be on the lower end between the beasts around, but it couldn't be trifled with. The earth wall only resisted for about a second and finally crumbled. But that was precisely what Krune wanted to test. Because he erected that earth wall much faster, its defensive power decreased in compensation. Now he had an idea of how to use it.

Krune didn't dare to delay. From above, one could see that several wind blades had finished casting and shot straight at the demon leopards neck. But the leopard wasn't any slower than Krune and dodged to the side. Unfortunately for it, as soon as it dodged, an earth spike shot from the ground. The leopard was alarmed! It tried to dodge again, but was too late. Although it didn't hit it's heart as planned, the spike still left a gruesome hole on the demon leopard's body.

The leopard noticed the crisis and immediately fled. But how could Krune allow that? The moment it started to move away, another earth wall appeared right in front of it. The leopard tried to dodge, but with his severe injuries, it was much slower. As soon as it hit the wall, several earth spikes shot from every direction at it. The leopard could only jump to dodge the spikes, but it was well within Krune's strategy. The moment it jumped, ten wind blades came straight at it, cutting the leopard to pieces. Its severed parts fell to the ground, and the light in its eyes disappeared.

'Sigh... I really don't like the sensation of killing. But if I wait for the others to attack me first just so that I could have a reason to strike back, there will be a time when I will not be able to react fast enough. In the end, the offense is the best defense.'

Now that Krune is at the 6th stage of the Qi Condensation Realm, he wasn't as tired as when he killed the four-winged demon crow. If necessary, he could battle one or two more times. But with the blood smell coming from the leopard's corpse, what is waiting for Krune isn't just one or two beasts, but several of them.

Krune immediately cut the leopard's head, controlled his spiritual energy to grab the demon core, and swiftly left. Different from before, he now could move much faster with his higher cultivation and control over the wind element. Before the other beast even started to approach the leopard's corpse, Krune had been long gone from the area.

'Although I still have enough spirit energy to hunt one or two more beasts, I should recover to my peak before that. Caution first, caution first.'

Thought the wisp who just attacked a demon beast with a higher cultivation level than himself and let it get close to test his never-before-tested defense skills. Indeed, Krune is a very 'cautious' wisp.

A week later, on the top of a big tree with thick foliage, Krune was resting from another battle he had around an hour ago against a demon python. Wisps are considered the weakest race of the universe, but it wasn't like they didn't have any good traits. One of them is their immunity to any bodily poisons. Unless the poison is also able to affect the soul, wisps will find it no different than air or water. That demon python tried to use a poisonous fog against Krune. But in the end, it turned out to be the easiest battle he had so far.

'I already have five demon cores, it should be more or less enough to create the second spiritual energy meridian. Even if I need more spiritual energy for the second, it shouldn't be that much.'

Krune pondered a little more and decided that it was indeed the case. He is also at the peak of the 6th stage, the battles he had stimulated his potential and understanding of the use of the Energy Meridian. He just needs to find a secluded place where he wouldn't be disrupted during the second Spiritual Energy Meridian creation. Krune finished to restore his spiritual energy and immediately set off to find it.

It didn't take long to find one, though. This forest is the lair of several demon beasts, and the majority have their own dens where they could rest. With Krune's intelligence, it didn't take long for him to find one of those.

The owner of this one was a 6th stage Qi Condensation Blood Eyed Rabbit. Although this type of rabbit is quite fast, it couldn't compare with the Three-Tails Demon Leopard from back then. So Krune got rid of it without alarming anyone and used his earth wall to seal the entrance.

As a wisp, Krune has absolutely no need for air. Also, spiritual energy is all-encompassing. As long as special formations aren't in place to prevent the flow, anywhere you go in this world will have the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Things like walls of caves are the same as empty air to it.

'With this Blood Eyed Rabbit demon core, now I have two 7th stage demon cores and four 6th stage ones. It should be enough. There is a bottleneck between the 6th and 7th stages of the Qi Condensation. Although I'm confident of achieving a breakthrough, I will take quite some time with just a single Spiritual Energy Meridian. I better create my second Spiritual Energy Meridian first.'

With everything in place, Krune started with the creation of his second one. He already had the experience of creating the first. However, even though he hasn't failed the creation of the second one yet, it was still taking a lot more time to finish than the first Energy Meridian.

'As I thought. Just like when I was creating the pseudo meridians, every time I start a new one, it will take longer to form. It seems like the fused Energy Meridians follow the same principle as the Pseudo ones.'

"Click"

This was the second time that Krune has heard this sound. The demon cores were already with him, and just as expected, the second Spiritual Energy Meridian immediately started to absorb the spiritual energy from the surroundings. This thing looked like a bottomless hole. Krune could feel that in a shorter time than the first Energy Meridian creation, the spiritual energy around him had already vanished after the creation of this one.

'Impressive! I wonder how this technique was created at all. It's just the second Energy Meridian, but the consumption of spiritual energy is definitely much higher than before. But this time, I'm prepared!'

Krune brought the demon cores near, and the second Spiritual Energy Meridian started to absorb their spiritual energy like there was no tomorrow.

"Crack..."

"Crack..."

"Crack..."

"Crack..."

Soon, all four 6th stage cores were gone, but the absorption didn't seem like to stop at all.

Krune started to get nervous, he put a lot of effort to gather those six demon cores, after all. If he used all of then and the meridian still break after that, he would want to cry but have no tears... literally.

"Crack..."

The first 7th stage demon core was gone, and just when the energy of the second 7th stage core was half consumed, the flow of energy finally started to slow down. But in the end, it was still not enough in the finish the creation.

"Crack..."

The last demon core became powder, and the Energy Meridian still needed some more energy; otherwise, it would break apart. Fortunately, Krune was at his peak at the moment, and he immediately used his own spiritual energy to finish the job.

After consuming almost all of Krune's reserve of spiritual energy, the second Spiritual Energy Meridian was complete. And just like before, it shone for some time before settling down. Krune could finally let out a sigh of relief.

'Alright, that was more dangerous than I expected. Even six demon cores were not enough to finish its formation completely. In the future, I better get enough cores so that even if it goes above my predictions, I will still have enough to spare.'

Krune then got ready to check his new meridian.

'Let's try out the results.'

Report chapter

Krune started cultivating, and soon, he could feel the difference. His cultivation speed has improved a lot as expected. With another Spiritual Energy Meridian to share the burden of spiritual energy conversion, his cultivation is now progressing at least 50% faster. Krune then decided to take this chance to breakthrough into the 7th stage of the Qi Condensation.

The 7th stage of the Qi Condensation is known for its bottleneck. But it's not without reason. It's only at the 7th stage that a cultivator can finally form their Divine Sense. Until now, Krune has been using his affinity with spiritual energy to feel his surroundings and prevent dangerous situations. But this kind of scanning ability is very limited since he can't really see what is happening ahead, nor can it reach too far. It can only help him to feel if there is something alive ahead or not.

But Divine Sense is different. You can truly 'see' everything around you. It's a peculiar feeling once a cultivator opens their Divine Sense. They are used only to see what is ahead of them when suddenly, they now can see everything around.

But other races don't think anything strange about it, and wisps are one of them. They don't have eyes to start with, ever since wisps are born, they have a complete vision of 360 degrees. So, for them, the Divine Sense will basically improve this ability a lot. Other than the distance and the way that they 'see' using Divine Sense, there isn't much of a difference.

There is another thing worth remembering. When you achieve the 7th stage, the boost of power is much bigger than when you breakthrough the previous or next stages of this Realm. And the Divine Sense is the reason behind it. It's not only limited to what you can see, but it also improves the cultivator's own ability to control the spiritual elements. It also allows the use of skills from a much greater distance.

A week later, in a hidden burrow sealed by an earth wall, the spirit energy started to convene at great speed. Inside, one could see Krune absorbing all of it like a bottomless hole. A few minutes later, he felt like a boom came out of his core, and the spiritual energies around him finally started to stabilize.

'7th stage of Qi Condensation. It's only been three months since I met Feifei and old man Feng, and in three months, I went from the 3rd stage to where I'm now. This progress is faster than anything I ever thought to be able to do. Let's try out the Divine Sense.'

Krune concentrated, and slowly his divine sense started to spread out.

10 meters...

50 meters...

100 meters...

300 meters...

500 meters!

Krune was dumbfounded!

'500 meters, I can see everything in 500 meters! Incredible, I can't believe Divine Sense is so useful like this. With it, I won't need to fear anything as long as my opponent's cultivation isn't much higher than mine!'

Krune was ecstatic!

One must know that when other cultivators achieve the 7th stage of Qi Condensation, it can already be considered a miracle if they reach as far as 300 meters. And that's usually the case for races specialized in matters of the soul. Other races would often have a range of 150 to 200 meters. Fortunately for Krune, wisps can be considered one of the soul races too. It's just that they are far from the top-rated ones. Of course, Krune didn't know such things. The reason he was so happy was simply that now he will be able to avoid danger and prepare attacks much easier than before.

Krune didn't know that the reason his Divine Sense could reach so far as 500 meters is also because of his Energy Meridians. Other than the soul, Divine Senses are boosted by the owner's own spiritual energy and its purity too.

Wisps are already known to have very clean spiritual energy. So much that they are hunted for use in cultivation. On top of that, Krune's Spiritual Energy Meridians' conversion ability far outmatches regular ones. It's not only in speed but in purity as well. All of that put together turned into this unbelievable range coverage.

But Krune happiness didn't last long...

'F*ck! This thing spends spiritual energy like there is no tomorrow!'

That was to be expected. Such a good thing like Divine Sense couldn't come that easy, and there is no free lunch in this world. After calculating the rate of consumption of spiritual energy, Krune found out that he could maintain his Divine Sense spread out at full range for at most 10 minutes. But if he reduces the coverage range, the consumption also is significantly reduced.

There is another thing that one must pay attention too. Once someone uses Divine Sense to scan an area, someone around the same level of cultivation or higher will probably feel it. They will then be put on alert. In the end, Divine Sense is not omnipotent.

One day later, after stabilizing his cultivation, Krune left his seclusion sight and set out to get a spiritual vein. Krune already know where it is, he found it during his travel and hunting. The problem was that this one's owner is an 8th stage Qi Condensention Lizard Dragon.

Lizard Dragons aren't real dragons, but they have a very faint dragon bloodline, which makes them stronger than ordinary beast at the same cultivation level.

Krune didn't have the confidence of beating this Lizard Dragon before. Not because he thought he couldn't win in a one vs. one, but because it isn't the only beast guarding the location. Every spiritual vein owner would usually have a few more members of the same race, and this Lizard Dragon wasn't different. Together with him, there was another ten some Lizard Dragons of lower cultivation level.

But now that he made his breakthrough, and got the Divine Sense that can see everything 500 meters around him. Krune was confident that he could deal with this group, and at the same time, gather quite a few Demon Cores.

A few hours later, Krune arrived at a mountain range. It wasn't a big one but still had around twenty kilometers radius. He approached the lizards' nest carefully, not to alert anyone. After getting close enough, he started to spread his Divine Sense.

'If I'm not wrong, that 8th stage Lizard Dragon should be at the bottom of the nest. As long as I don't spread my Divine Sense too far in, it shouldn't notice me. As for the 7th ranked ones, if there is any, they probably won't be able to feel my divine sense since it is much stronger than any other 7th stage demon beast.'

After spreading his divine sense for 400 meters, Krune could already see almost all the lizards.

'Two 7th stage and nine 6th ones. I will need to get rid of them little by little first. The stronger ones are deep inside, while the weaker ones are close to the entrance or outside. I know what to do.'

Lizard Dragons are predators, and this mountain range is their territory, other beasts would not get close easily.

Krune then left to find a bait. With his Divine Sense, it wouldn't be too hard. Although spreading it 500 meters of distance spends a lot of spiritual energy, it doesn't mean that he has to keep it active 100% of the time. Krune circled around the border of the Lizards territory and spread his Divine sense every now and then for a few seconds. It didn't take long for him to find a 6th stage Demon Bear.

It was quite easy to deal with. Krune's cultivation is higher, and together with his wisp energy body, as soon as the bear saw what it was, it disregarded any possibility of danger. Wisps are hard to catch but are excellent cultivation resources for all the other races. Not to mention that this Demon Bear wasn't afraid at all that Krune could present any danger to it. The bear rushed straight at him. Just as it got closer, earth spikes shot from the ground under the bear. The earth spike pierced the bear, which growled in pain. It tried to get rid of the spike when suddenly, ten wind blades came from above and cut off its head.

'As expected of a defense type beast, the earth spike didn't have enough power to pierce all the way to its heart. With the amount of spiritual energy I used to cast it, any ordinary type 7th would have died if they didn't dodge in time. Not to mention the wind blades, the bear's head only dropped after the 8th one hit it. Now, with this big guy, it should be easy to attract those lizards slowly.'

Krune Grabbed the bear corpse, took out the Demon Core, and brought it somewhere close to the Lizard Dragons den. But it was still far enough so that he wouldn't catch the attention of the entire lair when killing the first ones to come.

He also prepared some pit traps with some earth spikes. He made sure to use a lot of spiritual energy in those spikes so that they could be much sturdier and would likely be able to pierce the scales of the lizards. Although Lizard Dragons aren't as massive as the demon bear, they are still on the bigger side of the beasts around. And this kind of trap just so happens to be very effective on them.

It didn't take long for a few Lizard dragons to get the scent of blood from the bear corpse and come close. There were four of them. Because they are used to the safety of their territory, the lizards didn't think much before rushing over. Just when they were about the reach the bear corpse, several earth spikes came from bellow and direct impaled three of them. The last one was only survived because there was no earth spike ready where it passed. After noticing the danger, it immediately tried to flee. Unfortunately for it, just as it turned back, several wind blades struck from the side.

The Lizard Dragons have a high defense due to their scales. So one or two wind blades wouldn't be able to straightly kill it. Of course, the number of blades wasn't so little. Just like with the Demon Bear, Krune used ten wind blades against this last Lizard Dragon and precisely hitting its neck. After that, Krune swiftly took out their Demon Cores and cleaned the battlefield.

'Good, there is another five 6th stage lizards, and they should be coming soon.'

Sure enough, noticing that those four Lizards didn't come back after some time, the rest of the 6th stage Lizards came out to take a look. There was even one of the two 7th stage Lizard Dragons leading the group. This one was smarter than the lower levels one, after taking a look around, it found the situation somewhat fishy. Krune noticed that. So he decided that the best way to bring them under his trap was to make an appearance himself. No demon beast would ever let a wisp go away like that, they are very precious for all races.

Sure enough, when a wisp suddenly appeared beside the Bear corpse, all the lizards' eyes lit up. Of course, the 7th stage one was no exception. He gave a big roar, and all the lizards rushed over. Even they know that wisps are hard to find nowadays, and they couldn't let this one escape.

Krune snorted at this sight. He didn't move and patiently waited for them to enter the range of his earth spikes. They have been prepared long ago, and Krune just needs one thought for them to activate.

As soon as they got in the range of his traps, Krune controlled his spiritual energy to activate them. One lizard after another was immediately impaled, and the only survival this time was the 7th stage one. The Lizard Dragon was alarmed, it never expected that a wisp could be this strong. Although its body was able to fend off the attacks of the earth spikes, it still suffered severe injuries.

After that, it immediately turned tail to run. But how could Krune let him go? As soon as is it started to move, four earth walls appeared around it. Krune had been prepared for something like this a long time ago. After the walls were erected, ten wind blades started to fall from above. The Lizard Dragon noticed the crisis, and it used all its strength to blow away the earth wall in front of it. Although the earth wall was sturdy, it couldn't hold a 7th stage Lizard Dragon with a faint dragon bloodline for long. On the second hit, it finally crumbled. But it was already too late to escape, wind blade after wind blade hit its body and finished the job.

'Phew... that was dangerous. It almost escaped too. Those guys are really something else. As expected of a dragon bloodline, you can't underestimate it even if it is very faint.'

After getting the Demon Cores, Krune decided to retreat. He used over 80% of all his spiritual energy in those two traps. So he definitely wouldn't be able to deal with the leader and the last 7th stage the way he is at the moment.

'I don't need to go far. I just need more or less two hours to recover my spiritual energy, and I can start the last phase of my plan.'

Sometime after Krune left, the Lizard Dragon Leader and the other 7th stage one found out that almost all their nest was wiped out. The leader was enraged, but it couldn't do anything since Krune had left already. All it could do was to go rampaging around its territory. It then finally got tired and decided to go back to their nest to prevent more casualties.

Around two hours passed, and Krune was back to his peak. He then immediately set off since he wanted to finish it all today.

'As long as I get that low-level spiritual vein, I should have no more issues with spiritual energy for the creation of the next Spiritual Energy Meridians'

Krune arrived and looked at the entrance of their nest. It was a cave entrance on the base of the mountain. This time, Krune wouldn't be able to rely on his earth spikes or wind blades. That 8th stage Qi Condensation Lizard Dragon leader defense is bound to be highest between the Lizard Dragons. It will be very difficult to cause any severe injury on an 8th stage beast with a faint dragon bloodline. But Krune wasn't intending to do that anyway.

Krune spread his Divine Sense a little, just enough to see the things around 50 meters ahead of him. Then he moved carefully inside the Lizard Dragons nest. Being a wisp here is quite convenient. As long as he wasn't in their sightline, they would not be able to detect him. First, wisps don't walk, they float. And second, they don't have a body, so they don't have a scent to start with. Well, at least not until they gain their human form.

It didn't take long for Krune to find what he was looking for.

'As expected!'

Around 10 minutes later, the Lizard Dragon leader sensed a Divine Sense scanning his nest. It was already enraged to start with, and now someone dared to barge into his nest. It gave a deep roar and immediately rushed out, it was definitely going to eat the intruder alive!

Report chapter

Around 400 meters from where the Lizard Dragon Leader and his last subordinate were, Krune was at a huge part of the cave. In fact, this cave was enormous to start with. He had just finished his preparations, and he couldn't help but give a self compliment for his ingenuity.

'I might not have enough attack power to break your defense, but it doesn't mean that mother nature doesn't.'

It didn't take long for him to see his enemy incoming. Lizard Dragons might not be that fast, but as an 8th and 7th stage, they were still much faster than any ordinary demon beast. In the blink of an eye, they were already 100 meters away from Krune. But if Krune could smile, he would be doing so now.

'They are coming. The 7th stage lizard isn't important, a direct confrontation with it would be problematic, but I'm confident I can still win. The problem is the leader. If I don't break its scales, then I can only turn tail and run.'

When the Lizard Dragon leader saw Krune, it was taken a little aback. It might still not have developed a high level of intelligence. But it was sure that that Divine Sense earlier was from the killer of its brethren. It was convinced that the one that had come was definitely the one who had killed all of them. Because of it, the Lizard Dragon had come intending to get revenge.

But turns out that all it can see is nothing more than a wisp? Where is the perpetrator? It stopped for a second and scanned his surroundings with his own Divine Sense. Usually, beasts are not very specialized in the maters of the soul. In fact, the majority is at a lower level than ordinary human cultivators, let alone races like the Spirit Race. Because of that, their Divine Sense doesn't have too much range, and this Lizard Dragon Leader Divine Sense could at most reach 100 meters.

But even so, all it could see is the wisp in front of it. In the end, being the weakest race had its own good traits. To be underestimated is a very good one of them. The Lizard Dragon clearly dropped it's guard quite a lot after seeing Krune, and the same could be said for its companion. Since this wisp had come to deliver itself on the lizards' doorsteps, they wouldn't be polite.

The beast's low intelligence played it's part here. If the Lizard Dragon leader had thought a little more, it wouldn't have forgotten that what caught its attention at first was a... Divine Sense! Only those who have achieved the 7th of Qi Condensation would have a Divine Sense. Since Krune was the only one here, it was evident that he had to be the one who used the Divine Sense earlier. Still, such a train of thought had not even appeared it the leader's mind. In fact, even if it had, the Lizard Dragon probably wouldn't care. At most, it would be a little more alert.

The leader and its companion rushed forward, not paying attention to anything else. When they were just fifty-some meters of distance, Krune activated his trap. Immediately, the cave started to tremble. The lizards got alarmed with the sudden development, but they didn't know what was happening. Much less did they have the time to think. That's because, above of them, enormous stalactites started falling down! Who knows how many years it took for those stalactites to form, not to mention that their attack power wasn't something that Krune's earth spikes could match at the moment.

In an instant, hundreds of stalactites fell, and the two lizard dragons immediately tried to dodge. Still, it was too late. If they escaped this calamity so easily, Krune's plan would have been worth nothing. He was already expecting it. The moment they tried to dodge, earth walls erected around the two. The Lizard Dragon leader got enraged! At any other moment, this puny wall would only need one blow of its tail or claws to crumble apart, but it had no time for that now.

"Boom, boom, boom"

It wasn't before a minute later that everything calmed down. Even Krune was a little afraid of what he saw. He didn't expect this plan to create such a tumult. He just prepared a few of the stalactites above to fall inside of his earth wall trap. But those stalactites created a chain reaction that made a lot more to come down from the surroundings. A few stalactites fell just ten meters ahead of him. Krune couldn't help but think that he could have buried himself here.

'Scary! Mother nature can't be trifled with, after all. Even if that Lizard Dragon leader survived this assault, it has definitely suffered grievous injuries. It worked much better than I thought, though. So let's take a closer look first.'

Krune first got rid of the earth walls to see better. To his surprise, although the 7th stage Lizard Dragon died, the 8th stage Lizard Dragon was still on its last breaths. There was a stalactite impaled on the back, and it definitely couldn't move anymore. It looked at the wisp in front of it with hatred, but soon, the light on its eyes dimmed. The mountain range tyrant was finally dead.

Seeing the hatred on the Lizard Dragon's eyes only made Krune sigh.

'It looked at me like that, but how many wisps did it eat until today? The inner parts of the forest have a higher concentration of spiritual energy. The number of wisps born here is definitely much higher than those outside. Still, they usually wouldn't even have time to form their conscience before being eaten and have their energy absorbed by demon beasts like you.'

Wisps are really a pitiful lot. Between it humans, demon beasts, or even common animals, the majority would always have parents that would take care of them until they could fend for themselves. But what about wisps? They are born from the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, what parent is there to talk about? Krune didn't feel the list bit of guilt. Although he didn't like killing, he wasn't an idiot to the point that he thought he would achieve greatness by being a pacifist. Even if he doesn't make the first move, the other will definitely do so.

Krune took quite some time to open the Lizard Leader's head. If not for this cave stalactites, he probably would have to wait until he at least got to the 8th stage of the Qi Condensation to come here. Otherwise, he would have to give up. Krune spent most of his life running from both wisp hunters and demon beasts alike. Caves were definitely inside the scope of his hiding places, and he had witnessed how dangerous those stalactites could be before.

'As expected of a race with a faint dragon bloodline, their demon cores have much more spiritual energy than those ordinary beasts at the same level.'

After collecting everything, Krune went further into the cave. It was time to see the spiritual vein by himself. A few minutes later, Krune entered a cave room that was even bigger than the place where he had set up his trap. The cave walls had an azure hue, and at the center, one could see a small lake around 40 meters long. It was a beautiful scene. On the side of the lake, one could see the crude nests that the Lizards had made for them to rest. The biggest one was obviously for the Lizard Dragon leader.

Krune was just about to approach when he suddenly heard some yearning sounds coming from behind the nests. He then carefully approached. His air compressed ball was right in front of him too. If something launched an attack at him, he would be able to escape quickly. Ever since Krune used this strategy against the Four Winged Demon Crow, he never entered a battle without one.

At the same time, several wind blades above his head were ready to be shot.

But when he finally saw what it was, all his tension deflated like a balloon. Turns out that those yearning sounds were the offsprings of the Lizard Dragons. The biggest one didn't even reach a third of the size of a 6th stage Lizard Dragon. But Krune was also quite impressed, of the five little ones, the weakest one was already at the 3rd stage of the Qi Condensation! And it was apparent that this one was born not long ago.

'To be born directly at the 3rd stage of the Qi Condensation, what an envious thing! I wonder how many other races have the same capability.'

Krune the sighed.

'Wisps are really a weak bunch.'

The big brother of the group was at the peak of the 4th stage, and it looked with hostility at Krune. The small Lizard Dragon then put itself in front of the smaller ones and let out several tiny roars. It was clearly going to put its life on the line to protect his little brothers and sisters. Krune looked at it and couldn't help find it intriguing. Four months ago, Krune would only be able to flee at the sight of a peak 4th stage Qi Condensation demon beast. But now he found its stance quite cute.

'I wonder how good it is to have a family. This lizard still hasn't developed it's intelligence to be able to think straight. But it still knows how to put the safety of the family above its own interest.'

Thinking about it reminded him of Wang Feifei. He will never forget that day when she made him promise that he would marry her. Soon after, Krune started to laugh. Even though he will try to keep that promise, he knows very well that this is quite a helpless attempt. First of all, Feifei was only a Kid. By the time he gets strong enough to go where she is, she will probably have married someone else already. Even if she hasn't, she would just think about that day as a Kid's selfishness. But it doesn't matter. For Krune, that was still a perfect memory that he cherishes very much.

Krune pondered a bit about what to do with those Lizard Dragons. If he let them go, there might come a day when they mature and eat other wisps. On the other side, Krune isn't a bloodthirsty fellow, he doesn't even like killing to start with.

In the end, he couldn't bring himself to do anything. Now that the adults are all dead, their chances of survival are pretty small. Krune had never killed just for the sake of killing, every single battle he had until today was against opponents of a similar level to himself. They were situations where if he had lost, it would have been his death. Those little ones pose absolutely no threat to him what so ever.

After ignoring the little Lizard Dragons, Krune went to the small lake to take a look. Inside he could see a crystalline white spiritual vein rooted in the earth. The water had the same limpid azure color as the cave, and the concentration of spiritual energy around was the highest he has ever felt. This is just a very low-level spiritual vein. Krune couldn't help but wonder how good the high-level ones are.

Krune was planning to stay here until he breakthrough to the Foundation Establishment. Only after that would he be able to attain his human form. But first, he had to recover his spiritual energy, the amount used to set up those traps back then used more than half of his reservoir. It's always good to stay at peak state in case the train went out of the rails. Krune knows that those who are prepared usually live longer. After recovering, he will immediately start cultivating. He still needs to create the third meridian, and with that, his cultivation speed will go a step further once again.

One week later, Krune had reached halfway through the 7th stage of Qi Condensation. He thought it was about time to create the third Spiritual Energy Meridian. Just when he was about to start the process, he heard some cries coming from the little Lizard Dragons. Because it was different from before, he wondered what it was about. He got closer to take a look and noticed that the small guys seemed a little weak.

'Why is it happening? I don't remember to have done anything for them to turn out like this.'

It didn't take long for Krune to understand, though.

'Of course! How could I have forgotten? They aren't wisps like me, so they need to eat to survive.'

Krune felt like a headache was coming. The lizards looked at him as if they were waiting for him to do something. It made him dumbfounded! He wasn't their parents, and they should be grateful that he didn't kill them to end all the trouble. Krune decided to ignore the little Lizard Dragons and went back to the lake to prepare for the third meridian creation. The cries didn't stop, though. Krune kept ignoring it at first, but with time, it started to really bother him. In the end, he couldn't concentrate at all!

'Ahhhhhh! Fine! I will get some food for you. For fuc*ing sake, why am I even bothering with it?!'

An hour later, Krune came back with a demon deer corpse. Unfortunately, he couldn't use that demon bear corpse anymore. It had already rotted quite a bit, and he didn't know if it would affect the lizards. The demon deer was an ordinary beast of the 6th stage. Usually, demon deers walk-in groups. Although it was a little dangerous to provoke a big group, with Krune's intelligence, it didn't take long for him to get one of them to separate from the rest. After that, it wasn't anything hard for him to kill a 6th stage ordinary demon beast.

The pack of demon deers noticed that they lost one of their group. Still, since they were close to the Lizard Dragons den, they didn't dare to enter their territory to look for it. The aura of the Lizard Dragons was still lingering around the mountain range, and it will take a long time for it to disappear.

When the little ones saw the deer corpse, their eyes lit up. Krune simply threw it close to them and let nature play its course. Their cries finally stopped, and even the big brother of the group looked a little more intimate at him now. Krune didn't care, though. He simply went back to the lake to restart his third meridian creation. But there was one thing that puzzled him.

'Is it me, or they all grew up quite a bit?'

Krune immediately threw this thought to the back of his mind. So what if they grow even more? It has nothing to do with him anyway.

After one hour, Krune was prepared to start again, and the demon cores were ready as well...

The demon cores were ready...

The demon cores...

Demon cores...

Cores...

"WHERE ARE THE DEMON CORES?!"

Krune was sure that he left the demon cores near the lake. He then immediately spread his Divine Sense to its max range coverage. Soon, everything in a 500 meters radius could be seen. But other than the Lizard Dragons, there wasn't anything else.

'Could it be that some beast came in earlier while I was out, and took the cores away? Impossible! With the Lizard Dragons aura still in place, only a 9th stage Qi Condensation demon beast or above would dare to come. Usually, they have their own spiritual veins, they wouldn't look for a fight without reason. Furthermore, if they saw that this spiritual vein was empty, they definitely wouldn't have left it behind.'

Suddenly, Krune remembered that the little ones seemed to have grown quite a bit while he was out. Not only that, but their auras are stronger than now too. After checking the Lizard Dragons cultivation, Krune felt like crying but had no tears... Well, wisps have no tears to start with.

All five of them have had a cultivation breakthrough while he was out. Not to mention that their big brother was even at the peak of the 5th stage of the Qi Condensation!

A minute later, all of them had already finished eating and sprinted in Krune's direction. He was already fuming, and they even dare to attack him? Courting Death!

Just as Krune was about to shoot wind blades and get rid of them. He noticed something weird. Different from all those who had attacked him until today, those little ones had no hostility on their faces. Let alone hostility, they looked very... Happy?

Once they got close, they started jumping around him and crying in his direction as if trying to court his favor. Krune looked at them, and his angriness deflated like a balloon. In the end, he could only sigh.

"Feifei, my love, please forgive your fiancé. It seems like he has got some kids of his own..."

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Krune was feeling helpless.

'My cores, my precious demon cores, gone, just like that.'

The more he looked at the Lizard Dragons, the gloomier he felt. He simply didn't have the heart to get rid of them. Especially now that they seemed to like him so much. As a wisp, Krune had spent must of his time alone, after all. Sure, he did know quite a few other wisps, and he wasn't the only one trying to survive all the hunting. With time, he bumped in quite a few of them who also had their own tricks to slip away from the pursues. But he never interacted much with them to start with.

In the end, Krune could only go out to catch more demon cores. Even if he does have a spiritual vein now, he won't risk damaging it because of the lack of spiritual energy. The next meridian is bound to be even more brutal than the last one when it comes to spiritual energy needed for creation.

Time passed, and soon, another month went by. Krune had left the spiritual vein to hunt more demon beasts so that he could acquire more demon cores. But he found out that 6th stage demon cores are not of much help for him anymore. In this last month, he had tried to create his third meridian, just for it to break apart. The third meridian absorbed those 6th cores like they were candies. When he noticed that he would be far from being able to form the third meridian, Krune immediately stopped the process so that he wouldn't damage the spirit vein.

Now he finally got a total of twenty 7th stage demon cores. If his calculation isn't wrong, he would need less than half of them to finish the process of the third meridian creation. Maybe he will even have enough to form the fourth energy meridian.

As for the little Lizard Dragons, well, they can't be said to be little anymore. The biggest was obviously the one who ate his 8th stage demon core. With all that energy, it had finally achieved the 6th stage of the Qi Condensation. As for the others, three are at the 5th stage while the youngest is at the peak of the 4th. They also had no need to care about food this last month, since every time Krune went hunting, he would bring back the demon corpses, which was more than enough to fill their bellies.

Krune started to worry how exactly will he leave this place, will it be okay to leave the Lizard Dragons behind? But that worry didn't take long to disappear. The big brother of the group quickly became strong enough to fend for himself, thanks to the help of the 8th stage demon core. Krune is sure that he would be able to protect the others until they mature too.

'It's finally time. I have more than enough demon cores to get the third meridian formed and might even be able to form the forth. I should get ready.'

He gave the big Lizard Dragon an order for them to stay away from him now. After achieving the 6th stage of the Qi Condensation, the intelligence of the Big Brother of the group had gone a step further. Now it could understand simple commands and help take care of the younger ones.

Acknowledging the orders, it brought back the younger lizards and gave Krune enough space for him to work.

Gradually, the formation of the third meridian took form. Krune was getting familiar with the process, and the creation was taking less time than before. After some time, the third meridian was complete again.

As expected, it immediately started to absorb the spiritual energy of the surroundings. And thanks to the spirit vein in the lake, it took quite some time to clean up all the spiritual energy. Only when Krune noticed that the light of the spiritual vein started to dim out, did he take out his demon cores and started to feed the meridian one by one. Fortunately, everything went just like Krune predicted. He used less than half of his twenty demon cores to finish the process, by the time he was going to use the 6th core, the formation of the third meridian was complete. The third meridian shone once more, just like the previous ones, and with that, the process was complete.

Krune let out a sigh of relief.

'Everything is back on track. If it wasn't for those guys...'

He gave the Lizard Dragons a glance but just sighed again.

'What is gone is gone, there is no reason to keep dwelling on it. It's not like the demon core of that 8th stage Lizard Dragon will come out of nowhere anyway. Let's try and see if I can form my fourth meridian. After the spiritual energy of the cave comes back to normal, I will see if it will be possible to make it sooner. I might as well go out and take a few more demon cores just in case.'

Two days later, the spiritual vein was bright as ever, and the spiritual energy in the cave was also back to normal. Krune also took this last two days to cultivate and was able to reach the peak of the 7th stage of Qi Condensation. His cultivation speed had increased yet again.

But there was one thing that Krune noticed. When he created his second meridian, his cultivation speed indeed became much faster. Still, it wasn't double the speed. Now that he created the third one, although his cultivation speed got faster again, it was far from being three times the speed of a single meridian. The weird part is that if he used any of the three meridians alone, the cultivation speed would be the same for all of them. But when used all three together, their individual efficiency lowered.

After thinking about it, Krune came up with two hypotheses:

First, because his cultivation is too low, his energy core can't keep up with the high speed of spiritual energy absorption. So the higher his cultivation, the more energy he could take at once. At the moment, his energy core was still at the Qi Condensation level. When he breaks through to the Foundation Establishment, his energy core will be upgraded, which will allow it to absorb spiritual energy much faster.

Second, there isn't enough spiritual energy. When all three worked together, the spiritual energy around wasn't big enough for all three to work at max capability.

Thankfully, the second hypothesis was quickly discarded out. When Krune thought about that, he simply took out his demon cores and tried to use them to speed up his cultivation. But the absorption rate was still the same.

This conclusion also made Krune understand one thing. Every time he finished creating a new Spiritual Energy Meridian, his own core would be strengthened. That's because, according to the first idea, the stronger his cultivation realm, the more energy he can absorbs. However, he hasn't achieved the Foundation Establishment stage yet. But his absorption rate increased every time a meridian was created. It could only mean that the meridians also helped strengthen his core.

A few days later, Krune had stocked twenty 7th stage demon cores. Although he thought that he already had enough cores to create the fourth Spiritual Energy Meridian before, he wanted to be safe.

There was also another issue. Krune noticed that once a demon beast dies, and its core is taken away, the spiritual energy inside of those cores will start to dissipate slowly.

Well, that was to be expected, demon cores have no life, so there is no one to control the energy inside to start with. Krune could feel that his oldest demon core had already lost almost half of the spiritual energy, and it keeps dropping down. Because of this, in the future, Krune won't be able to simply take a lot of low-level cores to make up for the quality. The initial idea was to get a lot of the easy demon cores, even if it took longer. That's because it would also be safer.

But now, it's evident that such an idea won't be usable anymore. Krune will have hunt higher level beasts if he wants to get enough spiritual energy to help with his Meridian Creation.

'There is no helping in that. Let's just start creating the forth meridian before the demon cores' energy is gone.'

But things didn't go as planned. As soon as Krune started the creation of the fourth meridian, his soul was struck by unbearable pain. Krune almost fainted right there, he immediately stopped the process, and the fourth meridian creation obviously failed as soon as it started. Krune was alarmed by that!

'What was that? I felt like my energy core was about to explode. If I had not stopped in time, my own energy core would have broken apart. I almost died a moment ago!'

Krune then calmed himself and started to think about what could have gone wrong.

'The Energy Meridians are directly linked to my own energy core. When I cultivate, they convert the energy of heaven and earth at extremely high speeds and deliver it into my core straight away. I have a pretty good idea of why their efficiency goes down when I use all three at the same time. It should be because my energy core can't take so much spiritual energy at the same time.'

'Could it be that my energy core can't sustain more than three Spiritual Energy Meridians? Three Energy Meridian is probably my limit with a core at the Qi Condensation stage. If I want to create more meridians, I will have to achieve the Foundation Establishment realm or find a way to strengthen it before that.'

Krune immediately threw the second idea away. Strengthen the core so that it can hold more Spiritual Energy Meridians? How the hell will he do that? Maybe after he leaves the forest and ventures the outer world, he might find some skill or technique that allows him to do it. But at the moment, such a thing is impossible. Since that's the case, he only has one path ahead.

'Time to aim for the Foundation Establishment. But before that, I will need to consolidate my cultivation at the 8th and 9th stage of Qi Condensation first.'

Krune had long since noticed that after he breaks through a stage, his cultivation becomes unstable for quite some time. In the first stages of the Qi Condensation, it wasn't so obvious. Still, after reaching the 7th stage, it started to affect his progression speed. Simply put, his foundations were getting shaky. But it wasn't a problem, he also found out the best way to stabilize it. There was no better way than through battles! That's also why he is already at the peak of the 7th stage and can directly try to enter the 8th stage.

But now Krune is facing another issue.

'Since I won't be able to create the forth meridian any time soon, all these 7th stage demon cores don't have much use for me. They would be very good if I didn't have the spiritual vein since their energy is much higher than what I can get outside. Still, because of the limitation of how much spiritual energy I can absorb at the same time, the spiritual vein is already more than enough for me. But then again, if I don't use them, their energy will simply disappear sooner or later.'

While holding the demon cores in front of him with his spiritual energy, Krune noticed the Lizard Dragons at a distance. They were all looking straight at him, and their eyes were shining with yearning. Krune had ordered them that they must not eat his demon cores. There was even once when the oldest Lizard Dragon tried to get one of them sneakily. But how could Krune not notice him? As a wisp, even without his Divine Sense, he can still feel the energy around him. It was way too easy to notice this fella trying to pull one on him.

After getting a beating from Krune for his naughtiness, let alone this guy, even the younger ones didn't dare to approach his demon cores anymore. The sorry state of their Big Brother was more than enough for them to understand the consequences of such a foolish act.

Krune pondered for a bit but still gave up in the end. What is he going to do with empty demon cores anyway? They are nothing more than decoration after all the spiritual energy is gone. He has a total of twenty core and five Lizard Dragons, so he might as well give 4 for each one of them.

'Come here, I will give you these ones.'

The Lizards immediately rushed over, and each got 4 cores. The happiness on their faces made Krune feel a little better. Well, all of them except for one big guy. When Krune looked at the oldest lizard, he could see its gloomy face while he looked back at him. Turns out that Krune had given him the demon cores with the lowest amount of spiritual energy inside. With its 6th stage cultivation level, it could totally feel that his brother and sisters' cores had much more spiritual energy than his ones. Krune saw that and then smirked at him.

"Haha! 'THAT' is what you get for trying to steal my demon cores before. Do you think I forgot about that? No way! Furthermore, 'YOU' was the one who ate my 8th stage demon core. Do you think I don't know that too? How could your cultivation be so much higher than your siblings if you hadn't got the greatest reward? You better be happy that I didn't give your cores to them; otherwise, I don't mind not giving you anything anymore. Hmph!'

The oldest Lizard Dragon didn't quite understand what Krune said. However, it still could understand that it wouldn't get anything more out of him. With a sad face, it took its four cores and went to a corner to absorb them.

Here, in the inner parts of the Katiu Forest, there is an adult wisp feeling great for being able to verbally bully a 6th stage Lizard Dragon, who couldn't understand a single word that he said.

Krune felt very proud of himself. Yeap! He isn't petty. He isn't petty at all!

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Read Is that a Wisp? Chapter 11 At least you know how to be grateful online for free - AllNovelFull

A week later, after making the oldest Lizard Dragon cry, Krune finally achieved the 8th stage of the Qi Condensation realm. He could now opt for slowly stabilizing his cultivation in the spiritual vein lake or go out to do battle. Of course, if he does like the last weeks and chose weak opponents, nothing will change at all, and he might as well stay in the spiritual vein.

'But first, I need to improve my own abilities. Wind blades and earth spikes or walls have reached a limit of what they can do. If I get to find a higher defense demon beast like the Lizard Dragon leader, it will still be quite hard to break through their scales or hides. I should have enough control over spiritual energy to try that.'

The thing that Krune is thinking about is skill merging. By combining two skills to achieve higher attack power. He had quite a feel ideas, Krune had seen way too many types of low-level skills from wisp hunters in his life. Simply put, he saw every type of common element.

There was once when he bumped on a group of wisp hunters. Fortunately, they couldn't waste their time with Krune at that time. That was because that group was fighting one 7th stage Qi Condensation Fanged Bull. It was during that battle that he saw two hunters casting wind blade together with a fireball.

The result was an amazing blazing wind blade, which was much more powerful than any of the two skills alone. At that time, it was obvious that neither of the two hunters could have used that merging skills alone. To cast two skills at the same time, and make sure they merge, isn't something one can do without enough control over spiritual energy. That group of hunters was definitely an old one that had gone through a lot together.

For now he was going to try the blazing wind blade, he had already used two different skills at the same time before like the earth spikes and wind blades, but they were doing their own things, earth spikes are earth spikes, wind blades are wind blades, they didn't have anything to do with each other at all, each one had their own place and objective when he used them.

First, he needs to understand how to cast a fireball, or better, he needs to know how to create fire to start with. One must remember that Krune had learned how to used his skills alone. He had no manuals or teachers to speak of.

Since he didn't know how to do that, he used his own idea. By elevating the temperature in a single point to a ridiculous degree while using spiritual energy as fuel, he finally was able to understand the principle behind it. Of course, it took him two entire days to figure out how to convert spiritual energy into something that could be used as fuel for the fireball. It was the fire element of spiritual energy.

After learning how to create a fireball, he started to practice with it. There would be no point in trying to merge his wind blades with the fireball while he barely knows how to control it to start with. He went outside to hunt a few 7th or 8th stage Qi Condensation beasts and made sure to try to use it in battle. Krune kept at it for an entire week, every time he killed a demon beast, he would return to the spiritual vein and ponder over his experiences. As for the demon corpses and demon cores, he simply threw them at the Lizard Dragons. He had already grown used to feed them anyway.

After a week of practice, he had finally got an initial control over the fire element, so it was time to apply it to his other skills.

'I have two ideas in mind. The first one is the blazing wind blade. The attack power of this thing is bound to be several times higher than any normal wind blade. As for the second...'

Krune's mind lit up. He might just have found a way to immobilize strength or defense type beasts completely. But he still needs to try it out, though.

'Let's start with the blazing wind blades first.'

And just like that, Krune started to practice merging one fireball with the compressed air that the wind blades were made. Sure enough, the ability to merge two skills together turned out to be terrifyingly difficult. More often than not, Krune would lose control over the fire element energy, and it would eat away the wind element. The air compressed of the wind blade would then be released all around, throwing fire everywhere. After a few tries, Krune gave up practicing beside the spirit vein. He is turning the cave room into a mess, it might even affect his spiritual vein at this rate.

After another two weeks of trials and failures he finally found the trick behind the issue.

It turns out that to put both the fire and wind elements together was a fool's idea to start with. At least, Krune definitely doesn't have the ability to do so at the moment. The correct path was first to convert the spiritual energy into the fire element, and then use the wind element to compress the air around the fire element. After taking the shape of the wind blade, he would release it, and at the same time, ignite the elemental fire energy. They would then merge together the moment it was released, creating a terrifying blazing wind blade that cut everything on its path. It was like a hot knife cutting through butter, and even Krune was a little scared of the results.

'Holy sh*t! It was good that I was practicing it from some distance away. If I had missed the release direction and it came to me, I would find out if a wisp can be burnt to a crisp or not. Not only the power has increased several folds, but even the speed of the blade is also at least three times faster than before.'

'I guess it is because the high temperate burns the air around, eliminating the resistance, and adding to the power of the blade itself. At my level, I refuse to believe I couldn't have cut through the Lizard Dragon leader back then.'

In fact, Krune didn't know, but the grand part of the attack power of the blazing wind blade was because of his Spiritual Energy Meridians. There is no way someone else at his level would be able to control those two types of elements at the same time. Perhaps, only members of big clans or sects would have the necessary knowledge to pass down such abilities. Krune is still underestimating the usefulness of his Myriad Energies technique, maybe even its name came out to be because of its unbelievable support at the control over the elements.

Krune was in the middle of his practice outside the Lizard Dragons cave when suddenly, he noticed that the oldest Lizard Dragon came out of nowhere with a demon deer in its mouth. Soon, he could see that its brother and sisters were behind it with some lower-level demon deers too.

Krune was a little taken aback. He had never taken those guys out for hunting before, but it turns out that they can already take care of themselves. Krune hadn't paid any attention to the lizards in the past weeks, he simply brought back the demon corpses to feed them and threw the demon cores for them to eat.

Turns out that without him knowing, their big brother was already at the peak of the 6th stage. While the youngest Lizard Dragon was in the middle of the 5th stage. As you know, Lizard Dragons have a faint Dragon bloodline. Even though it's very little, just this much is enough for then to be able to battle ordinary demon beasts of a higher level than themselves. And the proof is right in front of Krune since he could feel that the demon deer in the moth of the oldest Lizard Dragon was at the beginning of the 7th stage. The big guy also had quite a few injuries on his body, the same could be said for his brother and sisters, but those were nothing serious.

Krune was happy for them. It seems like they already have the power to fend for themselves. When he leaves this place, he won't need to worry about them not being able to eat or defend against enemies.

But Krune couldn't expect to see what happened next. All of them bit their demon deer heads and took away the demon cores. After that, they came in front of Krune and used their tongs to offer Krune their demon cores. Krune was really astonished seeing that, those gluttons are offering their demon cores to himself.

"For me?"

The big brother nodded his head and his siblings followed suit, Krune couldn't help but feel a little emotional in his heart.

"Haha! At least you guys know how to be grateful, after all. Very well, I accept your gifts."

Krune grabbed the cores and put them away. Although he had no need for those cores anymore, it was his first time receiving a gift out of gratitude. It felt really good. He would make sure to use those cores when he cultivates next time instead of using the spiritual vein.

Krune then changed the form of the spiritual energy of his body into the hands of spiritual energy and patted the head of the five little big ones.

The Lizard Dragons seemed very satisfied with this.

"You guys go back to the spiritual vein and rest. You need to heal your injuries, and the spiritual vein should help with that."

Their Big Brother brought them away into the cave, and everything came back to normal around Krune.

'To think that they would gift me with their own demon cores. This oath to be the first time that a demon beast presented a wisp with demon cores. Hahaha!'

Just like that, day after day went by. Krune didn't have to go out hunting to feed the Lizard Dragons anymore either. So he basically spent his time on his merging skills. He got quite skilled at it now. The formation of the blazing wind blade only takes a second, and he didn't fail their compressing time anymore.

What Krune didn't expect was that his cultivation had already stabilized at the 8th stage of the Qi Condensation. This came as a surprise for him, he can now finally attack the 9th stage barrier. With the help of the spiritual vein, it shouldn't take him more than a month to reach the peak of the 8th stage.

Krune then went back to the cave. Just when he was about to enter the cave room where the spiritual vein was located, he noticed the Lizard Dragon apprehensively staring at the direction of the spiritual vein lake. Krune was puzzled about what was happening. There is no way someone would have entered the cave without him noticing. He spent a few weeks in front of the cave entrance practicing his new skills after all. Since it couldn't be an intruder, then it was definitely something else.

When Krune entered the cave room, the Lizard Dragons noticed him and quickly rushed to his side. Above the lake, one could see the spiritual energy rotating at high speeds, it was quite a sight to behold.

"How beautiful! What could cause such a thing to happen?"

The waves of spiritual energy had all colors of the rainbow. They went up and down like they were dancing. It felt like the descent of a deity, and it was truly amazing. After an hour, the dancing energies started to assemble into a single point in the middle. That mass of spiritual energy that was the size of a spec of sand began to grow up, Krune could only think about one thing at this point.

'It couldn't be that it will explode, right? If this amount of energy explodes, it will definitely ruin the spiritual vein in the lake!'

Fortunately for Krune, that wasn't going to happen. Time slowly passed, and more energy was gathered at the center. At some point, that mass of energy started to take form, and it looked just like a sphere. At first, it was as big as the head of a bull, but slowly, it started to shrink again.

Another hour passed, and the sphere of energy took the size of an ordinary energy core. At this point, Krune started to feel somewhat familiar with this type of spiritual energy. Still, he couldn't remember exactly where he had felt it before.

Suddenly, Krune's mind lit up!

"Wait! Could it be?!"

Finally, spiritual energy started to revolve around that small energy core. Slowly, it started floating over the lake. The progress was almost complete, and by now, Krune was virtually sure.

"Is that a wisp?"

Sure enough, everything calmed down the spiritual form of a wisp took place, the just born little guy was now floating there.

"So, that's how I was born, right?"

Krune might have found quite a few wisps during his life. But this is the very first time he saw how a wisp was born.

'No wonder wisps usually can't live past a day. With all the tumult that their birth generates and the time needed, any demon beasts or wisp hunters in the surroundings would definitely notice what's going on. By the time that the wisp takes its form, the beasts and hunters wouldn't let it go. A just born wisp has no memory to speak of, so they simply don't know how big is the danger when they first see the world around them.'

The little guy looked around, everything is new for him. He couldn't understand what's going on, just that he somehow, he appeared here, and that was all.

Krune looked at him and just sighed while approaching the other wisp.

"You can't understand me just yet, but I know way too well how you are feeling at the moment. Don't worry, though. I will take care of you for a while until you can at least understand what danger means."

Krune's birthplace was just like most of the still alive wisps. It was in a secluded place where rarely had any beast passing by. That was all he could remember. Krune can't even say where that place is anymore since he left after a few days. Still, at least, those few days were enough for him to understand if he was in danger or not so that he could flee if necessary.

Inside Katiu Forest, what determines if a wisp will live past a day or not is... Luck!

That was all.

The little guy still didn't know, but he could be said to be one the luckiest wisps of all time.

Report chapter

The Lizard Dragons looked at the two wisps strangely. In their eyes, there isn't too much of a difference in the way that they look, except that Krune energy body seemed a little bigger than the new guy.

Krune spent some time teaching the new wisp the basics, it would still take a while before he could speak. Also, he wanted to show him how to cultivate. Still, it was too early, he couldn't understand Krune just yet. Thinking about himself when he was a young wisp, he could remember that it took him around two months until he could finally understand words. Wisps might have extremely low life spans, but their intelligence is definitely ranked at the top. That's also why a wisp could achieve adult intelligence at the age of three. But Krune expects that he will be able to talk in one month more or less. After all, different from him, the new guy has a teacher.

Since Krune could only teach him slowly, he didn't force the matters. He spent some time with him every day between his practices, hunting, and cultivation. By now, Krune had already finished his breakthrough into the 9th stage of Qi Condensation. He was planning to go out to find some opponents to help him stabilize his cultivation. However, he didn't expect that those opponents would knock his door instead.

Two hundred kilometers away, a group of cultivators was making their way to the inner parts of the Katiu Forest. Their cultivation was quite high, with their leader being at the beginning of the Foundation Establishment Realm. Behind then, an old man at the 8th stage of the Qi Condensation followed closely. All the cultivators in this group, even their leader, showed utmost respect to him. That's because he is part of the Alchemist Guild, and the reason for them to come here was exactly to help him to acquire dragon blood for his concoctions.

Alchemists are extremely respected in the whole universe, even someone as low ranked as this man was no exception. Alchemists have a total of nine initial Stars, and even at his age, he is still at the first One. You could see it by taking a look at his badge on his robe, it had the symbol of a curled dragon and One Star at the top showing what his rank really is.

No one would dare to fake an Alchemist Badge, it was one of the greatest taboos. Alchemists that can create pills to help with one's cultivation path are rare, and it doesn't matter how low ranked they might be, there are very few who would try something at them. Once you buy a fight with an alchemist, you buy a fight with the entire guild. The alchemists' most terrifying part isn't their cultivation, nor are the pills that they concoct, but their connections. They usually have several strong and influential people on their backs who are willing to get their hands dirty for them.

The cultivator leader looked back at the old alchemist.

"Sir Casfer, we are almost there. According to our knowledge, the mountain range two hundred kilometers ahead is the lair of a group of Lizard Dragons. Although they obviously aren't real dragons, they do have a faint dragon bloodline. It should be enough for the task you need."

Casfer was the name of the low ranked alchemist, he was the one who contracted those group of cultivators to help him acquire some dragon blood. There aren't many demon beasts out there who have dragon bloodlines, but the Lizard Dragons just happen to be one of them.

"Hm, very well. As per the deal, once I get my hands on dragon blood, I'll concoct a one-star pill of your choice for each one of you. Don't forget that you must provide the materials for the pill, though."

The groups eyes lit up, even for their leader, a Foundation Establishment cultivator, one-star pills are very enticing, let alone for those other three at the 9th stage of Qi Condensation. They will obviously ask for the Foundation Establishment Pill, as for the leader, he is more interested in the cultivation stabilizing pill. He had just broken through the next realm and will take a long time to stabilize it. Unless he has something else to help him with that, that's where the cultivation stabilizing pills come into play.

"Alchemist Casfer has no need to worry, according to our information, the strongest Lizard Dragon in that mountain range is at the peak of the 8th stage of Qi Condensation. Although its faint dragon bloodline allows it to fight those with higher ranking, it won't be a problem for me. As for the rest, they won't be able to cause any trouble for Sir with my brothers around."

Casfer didn't care much about any of that, so he simply replied.

"Then I'm counting on you."

They kept on their journey, and a few hours later, they finally found their target. It was one of the Lizard Dragons sisters, she had finally broken through into the 6th stage thanks to all the demon cores that Krune got for her and her siblings. With that, she now had the power to defend herself outside. Except for the youngest Lizard Dragon, all the others had received Krunes permission to venture outside as long as they don't go too far away.

The cultivator leader looked at the Lizard Dragon far away and turned back to his companions.

"Here's the plan, don't kill that Lizard Dragon, all we know is that they occupy this mountain range. But we don't know where their lair is, so we need this one to show us the path. When you attack, make sure not to make any lethal injure. I will keep an eye out in case some other beast comes to bother you, now go."

The three 9th stage cultivator immediately rushed at the Lizard Dragon. The female Lizard Dragon felt the danger and tried to fight back. But just as she got severely injured in the first exchange, she understood that she wasn't their match and tried to flee. To its surprise, her enemies didn't try to stop it. The female Lizard Dragon is only at the 6th stage of Qi Condensation, and its intelligence is still very low. So it didn't think about something like that it might be bringing back home their foe, it just thought about running for her life.

The cultivators' group followed from a distance away, making sure that the female Lizard Dragon would not notice them. Sure enough, half an hour later, they saw that it entered a cave on the base of the mountain range. The cultivator leader's eyes immediately lit up after noticing that.

"Seems like it's here. Sir Casfer, please be careful, although I don't think anything can go wrong, it is still better to stay safe. So try to keep some distance behind us."

Casfer simply nodded.

"Let's go."

Inside the cave at the spiritual vein lake, Krune was finishing teaching the new wisp how to talk. After a month of practice, it could already understand most of the words and communicate fluently.

"Very well, it took me more than two months to be able to speak, but it only took you slightly more than a month. You should be grateful that you have someone to teach you, I didn't have such fortune.

By now, the new wisp had already acknowledged Krune as it's master. After hearing about the situation of the wisps outside, he couldn't help but feel extremely fortunate to have been born at the right time and the right place.

"Thank you, master. I think I should be able to finish the lectures by myself now."

Krune gave a mental thumbs up for him.

"Have you decided what your name will be? We wisps are used to give ourselves our own names, and Krune is the name I came up by myself."

The wisp looked with respect at Krune and replied.

"To be fair, master, I would like you to give me a name. You said that names are usually given by their parents on the other races. Although we wisps have no parents to speak of, I really consider you as if you are my father."

Krune was taken aback, sure it was common for the other races to give their offsprings a name, but he didn't expect that this guy liked him that much.

"A name..."

"In fact, I'm not too good at giving names either, and now that I think about it, my own name has no reason behind it. I just thought that it was good, that's all. Are you sure you want me to do it for you?"

The wisp immediately agreed.

"Hum... you were born above the spiritual vein lake. From what I could see from your personality, you are most likely to become a man instead of a woman once you take your human form at the Foundation Establishment.

Alright, from now on you are called Lakin.

Lakin was very pleased with his name. Although he knows that his master's thoughts were very simple while thinking about that, it was still a name chosen by him. That was what he wanted.

"Now I will impart you my Myriad Energies cultivation. This technique is considered extremely common outside. But make no mistake, the one that I'm impart-"

Suddenly, Krune heard the Lizard Dragons cry, he looked surprised at the entrance of the cave room and noticed the other four Lizard Dragons rushing out.

"Lakin, you stay here, You haven't cultivated yet, so it's too dangerous for you outside, I will take a look and be right back.

Lakin immediately accepted the order.

In the middle of the way, he noticed the female Lizard Dragon on the ground. She couldn't move anymore due to her injuries. After seeing that, Krune's mood immediately went dark. Who dares to touch his protegees?

He poured spiritual energy into the female Lizard Dragon to stabilize her condition. He then ordered the other four to drag her back to the spirit lake. Right after, he spread his Divine Sense outwards. Now that Krune was at the 9th stage of the Qi Condensation realm, his Divine Sense could cover a total of 700 meters radius. It didn't take long for him to see the group of cultivators making their way into the cave.

His mood went gloomy. Between them, there were three cultivators at the 9th stage of the Qi Condensation while the man at the front had a cultivation that he couldn't even read. It could only mean one thing.

'Foundation Establishment!'

As for the Alchemist Casfer, because he stayed far behind, he hasn't entered Krune's Divine Sense Range, so Krune couldn't see him.

At the same time that Krune spread his Divine Sense, the cultivator group noticed when it probed them. They immediately spread their own Divine Sense back to see who was checking on them. Still, to their surprise, they couldn't see who it was. The only exception was the Foundation Establishment leader. Thanks to his higher cultivation, his Divine Sense could cover almost 700 meters too. But for some reason, his face was showing awkwardness when he saw what laid ahead.

His companions noticed the change in his expression, one of them couldn't help but ask.

"What is it? Could it be that that Divine Sense just now was from the Lizard Dragon leader?"

The other cultivators immediately went on alert, though.

"How could that be? The information says that it has a cultivation at the peak of the 8th stage. Even if it had made a breakthrough, it would still be at the 9th stage, just like our own. Demon Beasts usually have a smaller coverage when we talk about Divine Sense, but we couldn't see anything. For it to have such a long-range Divine Sense, it would need to at least be at the Foundation Establishment. And if that's the case, we might as well turn around and leave immediately."

The cultivator who made the question could only nod, his companion's analysis is very plausible. If there is a Foundation Establishment Lizard Dragon ahead, they would be only courting death to press forward.

On the other hand, their leader only made a simple question that they couldn't expect.

"Is that a Wisp?"

His companions looked strangely at him. A wisp? How could that be? That Divine Sense from Earlier was very strong! Their own Divine Sense couldn't even compare to the later, they couldn't help but wonder if their leader was hallucinating or something.

"Are you sure you are seeing things correctly? There is no way that Divine Sense could be coming from a wisp, right? I've never heard about a wisp with a Divine Sense so strong before. First of all, can wisps even reach the cultivation level necessary to obtain a Divine Sense?"

That wasn't just the leader's companions doubt, the leader himself was just as puzzled. According to his Divine Sense, the wisp in front had really reached the 9th stage of the Qi Condensation. Not only that, but the Lizard Dragons around him were following its orders. He knows very well that both beasts and cultivators only see wisps as cultivation resources, so he also wondered if he is getting crazy.

A while later he started to laugh.

"Seems like we hit the jackpot! That wisp is really at the 9th stage of Qi Condensation! Do you have any idea how much a wisp at the 9th stage would be worth in the city? Let alone one pill, we will have enough money to buy tens of pills. Even two or three-star pills should not be a problem at all."

His companions got excited too, it was really a windfall for them. They could already see the moment that they also broke through the Foundation Establishment realm, how could they not be happy?

The leader looked at them and spoke through his Divine Sense. One of the uses of Divine Sense was that one could communicate without being afraid of being heard. At most, others would only be able to tell that they are speaking with each other, but there is no way they could listen to what was being said.

"Alright! Wisps are extremely fast at running, and this one should be even more so. To guarantee that it will not escape, I will guard the rear. At the same time, you guys will take your time to capture it. Even if it had reached the 9th stage, it couldn't possibly be your match, after all. Fortunately, we brought our wisp net too. As for the Lizard Dragons, I still haven't found that 8th stage one. So I will keep my Divine Sense spread, and if it appears, I will give you cover. Remember, that wisp is our main priority! After we capture it, we can spend our time getting those Lizard Dragons for Sir Casfer behind us."

Everyone nodded their heads and started moving forward.

Back in the cave, Krune saw everything that happened ahead. Although he couldn't hear what they were saying, it was way too easy to understand what they planned to do. The Foundation Establishment cultivator was following the group quite some distance behind. But Krune mentally smirked at that sight, he retreated his Divine Sense and prepared himself.

'So you think your friends are more than enough to deal with me, right? Haha, you have just sent them to their deaths.'

Krune's new merged skills are finally about to be shown to the world.

Report chapter

The cultivator group pressed forward, ahead of them, they could see that the space inside the cave started to get bigger. It just so happens that they got to the place where Krune had battled the Lizard Dragon leader. They also noticed the mess on the ground. It was evident that the stalactites from the roof had fallen down not too long ago, but that also meant that they won't see that happen any time soon. It takes hundreds if not thousands of years for those stalactites to form, it's simply impossible for them to form again on the roof without any outside help.

Further ahead, Krune could already see the approaching bunch, but he was feeling very calm. He had gone through quite a few battles recently and couldn't feel nervous anymore, this is the gift of experience.

'I guess that the old trick should work with those three. Indeed, there is nothing better than being a wisp in a situation like this one, they are really underestimating me. But it also pisses me off, your grandfather here will show you what a real wisp is capable of.'

Sure enough, Krune was right, they didn't put him in their eyes at all. The cultivator in the middle of the group then sent a Divine Sense message to his companions.

"Alright, let's finish it quickly. For this wisp to have reached the 9th of Qi Condensation, it might have some tricks under his belt. Still, there is nothing to be afraid of. I will use my earth protection and march forward. When it attacks me, you two rush to the sides and throw the net. But wait for me to block the attack first, though. As soon as that happens, I will rush forward and keep it occupied so that it won't run away, got it?"

The other two cultivators agreed. The one who spoke is specialized in the earth element, so he is the best to be the vanguard. At the same time, the Foundation Establishment leader behind kept his Divine Sense spread out. Although it consumes a lot of spiritual energy, he thinks that this battle will not take more than a few seconds, at most a minute.

Krune also kept the play, he floated left and right as if trying to find a way to pass through them and escape. Good thing that wisps had no face or bodily expressions to start with. Thanks to that, it was too easy to fool those guys ahead.

"Haha! Look at that, it still thinks it can escape, let's go."

The earth element cultivator rushed forward, and his two companions were right at his back, waiting for the signal. They quickly closed the distance. For them, it was too easy to deal with this wisp. In their eyes, Krune was as good as a captured wisp already.

Krune then pretended to reach a dead-end by mistake. When the cultivators noticed this, their confidence got even higher. On the other hand, their guard against Krune dropped even more. Krune saw that, and he started to form his wind blades above his head. When the earth element cultivator saw what Krune was about to use, he almost burst in laughter.

'Does this wisp think he can really break my defense with some puny wind blades? He must be dreaming!'

The earth element cultivator sprinted forward, and the two behind had their wisp nets ready for use. Everything was going according to the plan. Just when they were about to rush to the sides to trap Krune, something unbelievable happened. Right in front of them, their earth element cultivator companion was split in three! Two blazing wind blades passed through his body and went flying straight at them. Immediately, despair appeared on their faces!

'Skill merge! Wind element and Fire element, Blazing Wind Blades!'

Fast, those blades are too fast!

The Foundation Establishment cultivator behind noticed it before them and cried out.

"DODGE!"

But it was too late. The two blazing wind blades cut through the last two cultivators like a knife cutting butter. And their eyes showed their astonishment! They could only think one thing. In fact, the earth element cultivator companion ahead of them had the same thought before dying a second ago.

'Since when wisps are this strong?'

There was only black now, and the three of them died just like that.

But that wasn't the end, those blazing wind blades didn't slow down at all and flew straight at the Foundation Establishment leader. He was alarmed! But his cultivator was higher than Krune, and he was in the next realm, after all. He then immediately dodged, jumping to the side, and the blazing wind blades passed by him. He could even feel the scourging heat coming from them. The blades hit the wall behind the leader and went through it, no one knows how deep they have gone before losing their power.

But it wasn't over yet! As soon as he touched the ground, he noticed something wrong, the ground wasn't solid anymore! The Foundation Establishment cultivator immediately plummeted down.

'Skill merge! Earth element and Fire element, Lava Lake!'

The cultivator immediately used his spiritual energy to created a barrier to protect himself from the heat. As soon as his feet touched the ground under the small lava pond, he used all his strength to jump. Still, just as his head appeared outside the lava pond, he stopped. Not because he wanted to, but because he couldn't move any more! Turns out that the lava around him had suddenly solidified!

It was then that he noticed that the temperature all around him had plummeted!

'Skill merge! Earth, Fire and Water element, Stone Prison!'

This was Krune's idea to stop strong enemies from moving. As long as he could catch them off guard, he would use lava lake and a water element attack to solidify the lava, imprisoning his target.

The leader couldn't believe it, he saw everything that happened with his Divine Sense, but he didn't pay attention to what happened under him. That wisp had prepared to throw two wind blades at the cultivator on the forefront. But suddenly, those wind blades that shouldn't present any danger became fiery red! Their speed was inconceivable, it seemed like it could slash and burn everything in its path. It was truly a fearsome attack that even he wouldn't dare to block. That would be suicide!

When the two cultivators behind the first one only noticed the blazing winds blades, it was already too late to dodge.

The incredible thing was that those blades didn't lose any power and directly flew at him. Because of his surprise, he was late to react and could only jump to the side.

But who could have thought that everything that happened was for the sole purpose of baiting him into the trap?

The end result was a Foundation Establishment being captured by a wisp instead of the other way around. He was bound never to forget what happened today.

A moment later, he came back to himself, he knows what that blazing wind blade and lava lake are.

'Skill merge! Impossible! He is just a wisp! How can he use skill merge? This is not something you should be able to see in a place like this, much less being used by a wisp!'

'No, first of all, that was something that needs two cultivators to work together to achieve the desired result perfectly. If you want to use skill merge alone, you will need to at least be in the late stages of the Foundation Establishment realm to control two elements at the same time. And even so, this is something very hard to achieve. Still, this wisp is obviously at the Qi Condensation realm, such a thing should be impossible!'

All of this took some time to explain. But in fact, it happened in just a few seconds. The leader calmed himself down and looked at the wisp as he would against a great foe. All his disdain had disappeared entirely! It was evident that he was taking Krune extremely serious now. That blazing wind blade had an attack power that wasn't the list bit weaker than his own attacks, and both the Lava Lake and Blazing Wind Blade were skills that he would never be able to use at his level.

Krune looked at him and spoke.

"Well, well, that's a first!"

"During my entire life, everyone who looked at me only showed disdain or greed, mainly greed, though. After all, wisps are supposed to be worth a lot in the cities, am I right? But this is the first time that I see a cultivator looking at me seriously. I have to say that it feels very good to finally be regarded as something else than a cultivation resource in someone's eyes."

The cultivator leader was taken aback. He knows that adult wisps can talk, and he had heard a few of them do so before. But this is the first time he heard such a self-confident wisp. It only made him put his guard even higher. But he could only stare at Krune, who was moving close to him.

"I'm surprised myself. But first of all, let me introduce myself, my name is Gony. I admit, when I first saw you with my Divine Sense, I had thought that I hit the jackpot. A wisp like you is bound to be worth tens if not hundreds of times more than any other wisp out in the market."

"But for me to be able to get that money, I would need to capture you alive, and I'm 100% sure that even if I win a fight against you, there would be no way I could capture you. And that is considering that I'm on the victorious side, which I'm obviously not. Your attack power is by no means any weaker than mine."

"So what about we do it like this? I will simply leave, and you will go back to your life. You already killed three of my companions, so it should be enough for you, right?"

Krune was a little surprised. He was expecting that this cultivator would feel humiliated at the fact that his companions died, and he got captured by a wisp. He was sure that he would attack straight away if he could do so, but it seemed like this person can think things more thoroughly.

"Interesting, although I can't let you leave that easily, are you not angry at the fact that I killed your companions or the fact that I captured you?"

The leader looked at Krune with caution before saying.

"There is nothing wrong with it. First of all, my skills were inferior to yours, so I lost."

"Second, we all underestimated you from the very beginning. Just because you are a wisp, we thought that you simply couldn't do anything against us. At most, you would find a way to escape. But it has never occurred to us that we could possibly die here."

"So I can't blame anyone else other than myself at the moment. You might not know this, but we have a certain law in this country. Anyone who decides to enter danger zones like this Katiu Forest must sign an agreement of responsibility. They will agree that anything that might happen here has nothing to do with the state, even if they die."

"The government is clear about the risks of adventuring the danger zones and only if you aren't afraid of the consequences should you enter them."

"So, my answer to your question is 'no.' Be it my companions or me, we only formed this group for the sake of profit a few days ago, so we don't know each other that much to start with."

Krune was truly surprised this time, he didn't expect that the world outside was so 'organized.' His curiosity was immediately picked. He is planning to leave this place when he achieves the Foundation Establishment, and knowledge from the outside will be very useful. Most of the things he knows came from what he heard from other wisps and from what he could prob from the nearby villages outside the forest, after all.

But before he could start making his questions, the cultivator stopped him.

"Before you ask more, you should know that we didn't come alone. Don't worry, I'm not threatening you. Our task was to collect dragon blood from those Lizard Dragons for the alchemist at the entrance. He is a member of the alchemist guild, and you probably would get much more information from him than me. All I ask you is to let us go after you finish answering your questions."

Krune wasn't surprised by this. Those who venture into the inner parts of Katiu Forest would usually have some backup plans. Suddenly, Krune had an idea. He went outside and quickly captured Casfer, he then brought him to where Gony was and explained the rules.

"I will separate the two of you, and I will make the same questions. If the answer of one of the two of you diverge from the other, then you can't blame me for what happens next. Your friends ahead are a good example of the outcome of pissing me off."

He put Casfer under the eyes of the Lizard Dragons and ordered them that if he tried to run, they could eat him. But they better not try to do that too without reason, or they will suffer even more than their big brother did back then when it tried to steal Krune's demon cores.

To be sure, he left Lakin overseeing the situation just in case.

Casfer is an alchemist, and he has no battle power what so ever. He was already almost pissing himself from this situation. Even if his cultivation was higher than the Lizard Dragons, he would have very little chance of escaping. Also, if he did, Casfer has no idea how he would pass through Krune. So he obediently waited.

'This is the best opportunity I've had so far to understand the outside world. Feifei and old Feng were just passing by to fix their spaceship, they are not from this world. They wouldn't know much about my planet anyway, so I better use this chance well.'

And just like that, the round of questions and answers started.

Report chapter

Krune started with questions like how the demon beasts with the human forms are treated in the country? Turns out that as long as you don't cause trouble in the cities, you are pretty much free to walk, live and do business however you like. When a demon beast reaches the city, they are obligated to sign a term of non-aggression, apply for an ID, provide the necessary information and etc.

The reason why the country accepts demon beasts is basically to do with spirit stone. Most of the incoming stones come from danger zones where beasts are the majority. Still, it would be too hard to place the danger zones under watch. So those places are regarded as 'whatever happens in there is your problem, the government has nothing to do with it' type.

The spirit stone brought by demon beast who has achieved the human form help to make the economy flows. The weird thing is, Krune has never seen a spirit stone before, so he couldn't help but ask how it looked like.

Both Casfer and Gony felt like they were being played with, they basically made the same question after hearing that.

"Doesn't this mountain range have a spiritual vein? With the amount of spiritual energy here, it has to have one."

Krune agreed and waited for them to continue.

"If it does, then it's easy for you to identify them. If you look beside the spiritual vein, it is bound to have several stones rich in spiritual energy. They are definitely different in color, too, most likely the same color as the spiritual vein itself."

Krune only thought for a second to remember that indeed, there are quite a few of those stones there. But because of the spiritual energy in the cave, he never paid attention to those stones before.

"How do you know how much they are worth?"

Casfer and Gony replied back.

"It depends on the concentration of energy in them, and it mostly has to do with the spiritual vein itself. If I'm not wrong, the spiritual vein in this mountain range is probably a low-quality spiritual vein. So the spirit stones produced by it are bound to be low quality spiritual stones too."

Krune understood this principle, he knows about the different qualities of spiritual veins, thanks to what he heard from the other wisps. But because no wisp would ever dare to approach the spiritual veins due to the demon beasts that protected them, he had never known that they produced spirit stones.

Suddenly, Krune got curious. He knows that wisp hunters capture his race to sell them on the cities, but exactly how much are they worth?

"It depends on the cultivation level of the wisps. As you probably know, wisps are used as cultivation resources mainly because of their easy to absorb and clean energy. Although the energy provided by the wisps isn't as pure as the energy of spirit stones, the energy of wisps can be absorbed several times faster. Also, the higher the cultivation of the wisp, the higher and cleaner the spiritual energy is."

"I will make a comparative with spirit stones."

"A wisp with the cultivation of 1st stage of Qi Condensation has enough spiritual energy equivalent to 500 Rank One low-quality spirit stones. Please remember that wisps energy can be absorbed much faster than spirit stones."

"2nd stage, 750 Rank One middle-quality spirit stones, the same rule applied, the time necessary to absorb their energy is less than one-tenth."

"3rd stage is 1000 Rank One high-quality spirit stones."

"From the 4th stage to 6th stage Qi Condensation wisps, the amount of spiritual energy and its cleanness also improves. All of them are considered the same as Rank Two spirit stones, which are a grade higher than the lowest quality."

"So, in this case, 4th stage wisps have the same spiritual energy as 500 Rank Two low-quality spirit stones."

"5th stage have the same as 750 Rank Two middle-quality spirit stones."

"And finally, the 6th stage has the same as 1000 Rank Two high-quality spirit stones."

"Of course, wisps of this level are rarely seen. Wisps live way too little, any average cultivator would take at least 15 to 20 years to reach the 6th stage of the Qi Condensation. So wisps who can live only 10 years, in general, are most likely to be dead already before that happens."

"Now, for the 7th stage or higher wisps. Those are basically legends! Unless someone is willing to pay the price to help a wisp to break through the 7th stage barrier, it is almost impossible for you to find such a rare wisp in the wild. And no one is willing to pay the price since the amount necessary for that is way higher than the return."

Krune looked back at them.

"So, what quality of spirit stones am I worth, would it be Rank Three high quality?"

They looked back at Krune with weird faces.

"We don't know. As I said, 7th stage wisps are as rare as phoenix feathers. I would say that a 7th stage wisp is definitely no less than 500 Rank Three low-quality spirit stones. But we all know that once the 7th stage is achieved, Divine Sense follows. Hence, chances are that they might already have surpassed the middle quality or maybe even high quality of Rank Three spirit stones."

Krune pondered a little. His Myriad Energies technique allowed him to cultivate at breakneck speed. He also knows that the quality of the converted spiritual energy provided by his energy meridians is definitely at the top. Chances are that his energy might be equivalent to Rank Four spirit stone or maybe even Rank Five, but he's not certain about that, nor did he wish to find out.

"No wonder there is so many wisp hunters. If I'm not wrong, even a 1st stage Qi Condensation wisp price is already enticing enough."

It was then that Krune thought about another thing.

"You guys said that a wisp has a certain amount of energy depending on their cultivation. For example, that a 1st Stage Qi Condensation wisp has more or less the same amount of spiritual energy as 500 Rank One low-quality spirit stones. But their spiritual energy can be even 10 times easier to absorb. If I'm not wrong, this 1st stage wisp is bound to be worth much more than just 500 spirit stone of the same level, right? After all, that rate of absorption would definitely help a lot more during a bottleneck breakthrough."

Casfer and Gony couldn't help but admire this wisp's intelligence.

"Exactly, wisps nowadays are becoming rare to find, so they are usually worth three to four times more their amount of spiritual energy in spirit stones."

Krune was happy enough with their answer, he then went into the next topic.

He also asked how does the country check on the demon beasts. After all, who can guarantee that the demon beasts will follow the laws of the country? Turns out that other than the things mentioned before, there are special blood contracts which are bind to the soul. Once a demon beast signs the contract, it will burn and place a restriction on its soul. If a demon beast goes overboard, the contract activates and restricts the beast until the authorities come to check what is happening.

Of course, the country doesn't want people to use the contracts to hunt down the demon beasts, so it is set that a demon beast can't break the law. But if someone tries to harm it, it has the authority to defend itself as long as the opponent doesn't die. That is to guarantee the demon beasts' safety and the continuous flow of spirit stone in the market.

Of course, it's not every demon beast who can enter. It doesn't matter what, a demon beast will only be treated as a citizen if it has at the very least achieved the human form. Any demon beast that hasn't got a human form will not be able to sign the agreement or the blood contract or do any of the other procedures. This is not only applied for the country but for the entire world. The reason for that is because any beast without a human form hasn't developed its mind to the point that it can control its instincts entirely. Because of that, any beast, wisps included, that haven't achieved the human form is not protected in any way.

That's also why you can find things like Demon Beasts meat in restaurants, demon cores for sale, and of course, wisps for absorption or for use in alchemy. Simply put, if you don't look like a human, you are not treated as a human to start with.

Also, if you leave the city and are not careful enough so that you are killed outside. So long as there is no evidence left behind, the country won't do anything for you.

Krune looked at them and asked.

"Will they ask what type of demon beast you are or ask for you to turn back into your real form before forming the contract?"

That was something very important for Krune. If people were to know that a Foundation Establishment wisp appeared, he might even get Divine Soul Realm cultivators after him. Krune thinks that such a wisp would be so tempting that the entire world will ignore the laws out of greediness.

Casfer and Gony gave the same answer.

"They won't, and that's for the same reason that you are probably thinking. If, for example, a demon beast has an amazing bloodline, alchemists might disregard anything to put their hands on such high-quality material. Because of that, their race or real forms are kept out of the registers."

"Of course, if they reveal their real forms or race by mistake, then they can only blame themselves for that."

Krune sighed in relief.

'It seems like I will be able to go to the city after all.'

After that, Krune brought both of them to the spiritual vein separately to check the quality of the spirit stones at the lake.

"As I thought, this is just a low-level spiritual vein. The spiritual stones close to the center of the lake are Rank One middle quality. Those more at the borders are Rank One low-quality ones."

Both Casfer and Gony didn't feel anything at the sight of the spirit stones. The reason is simple, there are very few of them. The total amount of spirit stones putting all the low and middle quality together wasn't even 200. For a One Star alchemist and a Foundation Establishment cultivator, it wasn't anything much.

Krune finally put them back together, there was no need to do separated questions anymore.

"Alright, I might as well tell you this. I don't like killing, never liked before, and will probably never like in the future. But if I let you guys go and you spread outside that a 9th stage Qi Condensation wisp had appeared, calamity would befall me. So how should we deal with this issue?"

Casfer and Gony understood that this was the moment that would decide whether they lived or died. Fortunately, the wisp was willing to let them go as long as they could guarantee Krune's secret. So Gony went forward first since he already had an idea in mind.

Gony touched his ring, and three red papers appeared on his hand. Krune wasn't surprised by this. He knows about spatial rings, in fact, spatial rings are widespread goods between cultivators. It is just that he doesn't have one. Also, he already had an idea of what those red papers were.

Gony looked at Krune and spoke.

"As I had commented before, these papers are blood contracts. As you can already imagine, we don't use them only to prevent the demon beast from creating problems in the cities. We also use them as a way to guarantee the safety of deals between cultivators. The principle is the same after the terms are written down, everyone just needs to sign it after. It will put a bind on the soul preventing the people involved to break the agreement."

Krune was very satisfied with this arrangement. He wasn't afraid that those contracts are fake. First of all, there would be no need for the Foundation Establishment cultivator to walk around with meaningless papers. Also, Casfer took out the same type of papers. Second, it was way too easy for Krune to test them out. He just needed to capture a low-level beast and force it to sign the contract, then he would make the beast break the contract against its will to see the results.

It was then that Krune had an idea. He will have to go to the city after he achieves the Foundation Establishment, so he might as well use Casfer and Gony as helpers.

Under the eyes of Casfer and Gony, Krune stated in the contract that they are forbidden ever to talk or use any other type of communication to tell what happened here. Nor are they to ever try anything against him in the future, be it through their own hands or through the hands of another. Otherwise, the punishment stated in the contract was death. He then gave it for the two of them to sign. The blood contracts immediately burnt, and a seal appeared on their foreheads for a few seconds, quickly disappearing after.

He then took another two blood contracts and stated that Gony and Casfer should give him all the help possible in case they met again in the future. As long as it didn't go against their own well being, of course. Casfer and Gony looked at each other and then nodded, this isn't a slave statement, so it should be fine.

"Very well, in the future, I will pay a visit to the city after I breakthrough the Foundation Establishment and get my human form. So I will see you there when the time comes."

Casfer and Gony were taken aback. Foundation Establishment wisp? Casfer looked at Krune and asked.

"If I may ask how old are you?"

Krune looked back at them and didn't think much about it. With the blood contract, they will never be able to betray him anyway.

"I'm three years old."

The souls of the two almost went out of their bodies.

Three years old 9th stage Qi Condensation realm wisp!

How is that even possible?!

Gony and Casfer were about to leave when Krune remembered one thing.

"Oh, right! From which city are you guys from?"

Casfer answered.

"There is only one city around that has an alchemist guild, and that is the city of Kaley."

Krune noted that mentally.

"Also, leave me one of your spatial rings, I don't have any."

This time, it was Casfer who went forward. As an alchemist, he had to carry a lot of materials around, so he had quite a few spare spatial rings with him.

After sending the two of them out, Krune went back to the spiritual vein lake.

"Well, Kaley city it is then."

Report chapter

Krune took a look at the female Lizard Dragon injuries. After infusing some more spiritual energy, the lizard could be said to be out of danger. In the next few days, it was already able to walk again.

'As expected of a dragon bloodline, their regeneration abilities are not something ordinary beasts can match.'

After the last incident, Krune didn't go out often. That was his first time using his merged skills in battle, and he had a lot to think about. He also spent his time imparting his Myriad Energies technique to Lakin. Still, for some reason, Lakin didn't seem to be as proficient at it as Krune is.

In fact, Lakin was having a hard time even to form the first pseudo meridians, which are a prerequisite to understanding how to create the Spiritual Energy Meridians. Krune pondered about that, but he couldn't find an answer to this issue. In the end, Krune could only tell Lakin to work hard. Even if he takes several times longer to create an Energy Meridian, it will still be hundreds of times better than cultivate without it.

A few weeks later, Krune had finished the preparation for the Foundation Establishment breakthrough. This time, instead of demon cores, Krune had taken all the spirit stones in the spiritual vein lake. He didn't know about the spirit stones before, but now that he does, he wouldn't let such a good thing slip by.

His cultivation had also stabilized at the 9th stage of the Qi Condensation realm. All he needed now was time to accumulate spiritual energy until he reaches the peak of the 9th stage. After that, only the Breakthrough remains.

During the time that Krune was patiently cultivating, he would give Lakin pointers and help the Lizard Dragons now and then. After a month, the oldest Lizard Dragon had already reached the late 7th stage of the Qi Condensation realm, and the youngest one had just broken through the 6th stage. This is all thanks to the numerous demon cores that Krune got while practicing outside. He already had no need to worry about the Lizard Dragons anymore.

Lakin had also achieved the 2nd stage of Qi Condensation during this time. With the Lizard Dragons here, he would have no need to be afraid of danger anytime soon. Lakin also got to create his 4th pseudo energy meridian. Although he is far from Krune's speed, it is still very good progress.

After everything was ready, Krune noticed an issue and a very important one at that. How does one breakthrough into the Foundation Establishment realm exactly? This realm is where you set the base where your core will reside when you achieve the Core Formation realm. But how does that base work to start with? What is it formed? How do you create it?

Krune had no idea, nor did he ask the last cultivator who came in here. He had no knowledge about the issue. In the end, his mind went blank. Without knowing how to do that, everything would be useless.

After hearing about Krune's issue, Lakin was a lot calmer than him, he simply said.

"Master, this problem is easy to solve. You are already as strong, if not stronger, than an ordinary early stages Foundation Establishment cultivator or demon beast. Isn't it easy to simply go deeper into the forest and find a Foundation Establishment beast to ask?"

Krune's mind lit up! That's right, a Foundation Establishment beast is bound to have an intelligence high enough to be at least able to answer my questions. It should be easy to get an answer from any of those.

"That's indeed a great idea. I'm leaving now, and I should be back soon. The Lizard Dragons should have no problem in protecting you and the spiritual vein while I'm out."

Lakin laughed out

"Exactly, and if they refuse to answer, master just need to give them a good beating, haha!"

Krune was also laughing, when have you ever seen a wisp beating other beasts just to get them to answer some questions?

"Haha, that will be a very good experience, see you all later!"

At the same time, around two thousand kilometers deeper into the Katiu Forest. There is a spiritual vein that is being overseen by a Two-Headed Demon Snake. Different from the majority of beasts, this snake didn't have any subordinates helping it guard the spiritual vein. That's because this demon snake is a 1st stage Foundation Establishment beast. Even other early stages Foundation Establishment beasts wouldn't dare to find trouble with this Two-Headed Demon Snake due to its poison.

It was sleeping peacefully when suddenly, its body trembled. It woke up alarmed and looked around, but there was nothing. Its Divine Sense couldn't find anything either.

'Am I imagining things? I could swear I felt some terrifying presence looking directly at me.'

After looking around a bit more and probe with its Divine sense for some time, it gave up and went back to sleep.

The poor snake didn't know that calamity was about to occur. Otherwise, it would have left the spiritual vein straight away.

Now that Krune is at the 9th stage of Qi Condensation, his speed has improved by leaps and bounds. That, coupled with much finer control over the wind element, made him faster than even some 3rd stage Foundation Establishment beasts. It only took him one day to reach a swamp where the concentration of spiritual energy was very high, it obviously had a spiritual vein somewhere.

It's not like Krune hadn't found other spiritual veins on his way here. It's just that the beasts guarding it were at most at the 9th stage of the Qi Condensation stage. Every time he checked those spiritual veins, the beasts guarding it would attack him. It had nothing to do with defending their spiritual vein, it was just because Krune was a wisp. How could they let such a succulent wisp slip away just like that?

One could only say that all of them were courting death. If there is one thing that Krune hates, it is when someone looks at him with greed as if he is already food on the table ready to be eaten. After beating the beasts black and blue to the point that they couldn't even stand up anymore. He took all the spirit stones available in their lairs and put them into his spatial ring, which he got from Casfer.

They were all Rank One spirit stones, but there were quite a few high-quality ones. Each spiritual vein didn't have too many spirit stones. Still, after sweeping three spiritual veins, Krune had already gathered almost 500 of them.

Krune also left those demon beasts alive for two reasons. First, it was because he wanted them to remember that wisps aren't easily bullied. He beat them so much that in the future, they will probably run at first sight of a wisp. With some luck, the number of wisps killed might go down this way. And second, it was because he had taken away their spirit stones, he considered those spirit stones as the payment for the trouble that those beasts caused.

After reaching the swamp, Krune pressed forward carefully. He did the same with all previous spiritual veins, and only when he was certain that there was no danger did he reveal himself to those beasts.

Moving a few kilometers further, the concentration of spiritual energy was getting higher. The spiritual vein is bound to be close, it didn't take long for Krune to find a clean lake in the middle of all that mud. It was obviously the point where the spiritual vein was located. Close to it, he could also see a nest where the Two-Headed Demon Snake was sleeping inside.

'Seems like I'm quite lucky. If I compare this Demon Snake with Gony back then, their spiritual energy is pretty much similar. It should be a 1st or 2nd stage Foundation Establishment demon beast at most.'

Krune was feeling very fortunate. In general, snakes would rely on their poisons to fight, and ordinary demon beasts of the same level would try to avoid battling a Two-Headed Demon Snake. Still, wisps are different, they don't have a body for the poison to circulate to start with. So poison type demon beasts have long since become the easiest target for Krune.

Krune made a few preparations and spread his Divine Sense to wake up the demon snake.

The demon snake immediately opened its eyes and checked the surroundings. The Divine Sense earlier was a very strong one, even stronger than it's own, but after looking around, the only thing it could see was Krune. It couldn't help but think.

'Is that a wisp?'

That Divine Sense earlier put it on guard, but all it could see is the wisp right in front of it. Could it be that it was dreaming?

Krune didn't know what the demon snake was thinking, nor did he care, he just came to make a few questions. As long as that snake knows its place, there will be no need for violence.

"Hello there, my name is Krune. I came here looking for a Foundation Establishment beast who could answer a few questions. You see, I'm at the peak of the 9th stage of Qi Condensation and would like to vie for the Foundation Establishment too. But I don't know what I should do to make the Breakthrough, would you mind to give me some pointers?"

The snake looked at Krune with a weird face, it could have expected for anything else. But definitely, not a wisp barging into its territory to make questions. Is this wisp even thinking straight? It ignored its internal struggle and immediately pounced at Krune.

9th stage Qi Condensation wisp! Such a wisp is bound to give the demon snake a massive boost in its cultivation. Probably helping it to even Breakthrough into the 2nd stage of the Foundation Establishment, so the demon snake was ecstatic!

Just as the demon sneak was about to eat the wisp, Krune suddenly disappeared. Or to be more specific, he moved so fast that the demon snake almost couldn't see its movement.

"Sigh, and here I was thinking that Foundation Establishment beasts were smarter than the Qi Condensation ones, seems like I was hoping for too much after all."

The demon snake was alarmed, and a foreboding sentiment washed over it. But it quickly calmed down. 'So what if the wisp is fast? It can't do anything to me to start with. I just need a good chance, and I can take him down.'

It decided to let out its poison fog, it would first poison the wisp so that it would lose its speed and then it would be done for... Or so it thought. Unfortunately, just as it was about to attack Krune again, its Divine Sense noticed something coming from above.

Fast! All it could think is that it was too fast!

When Krune dodged earlier, he had also prepared one blazing wind blade to be shot. He could have killed the demon snake straight away, but he held himself back on purpose to show the difference in strength.

The demon snake was a Foundation Establishment snake after all. After using all the power of its body, it dodged the blazing wind blade in the last instant. It looked back to where the fiery blade hit, and it could see that it went through the ground. Its Divine Sense even lost track of the blade a moment later. Powerful! That was what the demon snake thought at that instant. It looked back at Krune, and its disdain and greediness were gone this time, its enemy is definitely not weak at all.

'Although that attack was really strong, it should take a lot of time to prepare, and as long as I pay attention, I should be able to dodge. Not to mention that it should consume an astonishing amount of spiritual energy. Let's see just how many times you can still shoot that fire blade.'

That was what it thought... for a second. Right after that, when it looked above Krune, it's heart went cold, and sweat started to appear all over its body. Krune saw that and was very pleased with the look on its face.

"As expected of a Foundation Establishment beast. Even though I hold myself back just now, you still avoided my Skill Merge Blazing Wind Blade. Well, let's see if you can avoid thirty blazing wind blades at the same time. Try not to disappoint me."

The demon snake wanted to cry, and it thought that death was close. There is no way it can dodge all thirty blades at once. Still, for its surprise, Krune didn't really shoot all thirty blazing wind blades at once. He released them one by one. He was totally playing with the Two-Headed Demon Snake. Krune wanted to show this snake that each time he shot a Blazing Wind Blade, a new one would be formed in the place of the one that had released.

At first, the Demon Snake still had some hope. It was waiting for its poison fog to take effect, but as time went by, the gloomier it felt. That wisp didn't seem like to be weakening at all! Just when it was about to run out of spiritual energy, it screamed back through it's Divine Sense.

"Stop! I surrender, I will answer all your questions."

This Two-Headed Demon Snake is quite a rare demon beast. So it could only take the human form at the late stages of the Foundation Establishment or maybe only after the breaking through the Core Formation realm. So it couldn't use its mouth to speak.

Kune was very happy with that answer, but the demon snake couldn't help but ask first.

"Why is it that my poison doesn't work on you?"

Krune heard that question and thought that this demon snake isn't very smart after all.

"Isn't that obvious? I'm a wisp, I don't have a flesh and blood body. Unless your poison works on the soul, it's no different than air for me."

What Krune couldn't expect was the snake's answer for that.

"But... my poison works on the soul too."

Krune was taken aback this time. Its poison works on the soul too? Krune immediately examined himself but didn't find anything strange. Could it be that the snake is lying? He couldn't sense anything at all!

"Are you sure it works on the soul too?"

The sneak nodded its head. The Two-Headed Demon Snake is quite a rare demon beast, after all. Its poison is much more complicated than normal ones.

Krune pondered a bit and could only think about one thing.

'My Spiritual Energy Meridians! It can only be it, they have the power to almost instantly convert the spiritual energy of all types into the same type of spiritual energy as mine. Hence, it means that they can even filter away poison too!'

Suddenly, Krune had an idea.

'Wait! What will happen if I try to absorb other types of elements infused with spiritual energy?'

Krune immediately absorbed a little bit of the poisonous fog. That fog can affect the soul, so it's bound to have some spiritual energy infused in it. Sure enough, his Spiritual Energy Meridians purified the poison and added the spiritual energy in his core. But Krune wasn't that happy with it.

'It does indeed helps with my cultivation, but the speed of conversion is several times slower than the energy of Demon Cores, Spirit Stones, or the Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth. It seems like I can only use it in case I have no other font of spiritual energy available.'

Even so, it was great news for Krune. But anyway, he can make further tests another time. He had to finish his business with the demon snake first.

"Alright, let's forget about it. Tell me what you know about the Foundation Establishment breakthrough."

Report chapter

Krune waited for the Two-Headed Demon Snake to calm down and start to talk. But before that, he took out one of the blood contracts which he got from Gony. He stated that if the snake lied, it would die. Without any other choice, the snake used its blood to leave its mark on it. The contract immediately burnt and attached the restriction on the snake's soul.

"So, I'm going to simply tell the general concept which I believe works for everyone. Big clans and sects probably have better methods, but the end result will be the same.

Krune agreed with that point of view, Feifei, as part of the Wang Clan, most likely had the best methods available for her.

"To breakthrough into the Foundation Establishment realm is to lay a foundation which will sustain your Core once you breakthrough into the Core Formation realm. That's general knowledge, as to how to lay such foundation, we have to break down the interior of our Demon Core or Dantian in the humans' case and leave only the shell. The better it's broken, the easier it is to reform it in the form of a foundation. Think about the foundation as a bird's nest in the middle of an island surrounded by the lake's water."

"The lake's water is your spiritual energy. The higher your Foundation Establishment level, the more water that lake has. The island in the center is the foundation, you need to provide it with rich amounts of spiritual energy so that the flora, fauna, and earth get richer and richer. Only when the island gets sturdy enough can you breakthrough from the previous stage to the next. Finally, at the center of that island, you will build the nest that will nurture your future Core for the Core Formation stage. That nest is the Core of the foundation."

"So, you can take it simply as, break the interior of the core, reform it in a foundation like way, that's all."

The snake stopped talking there. In fact, there were more things about the foundation to be said, but it was still upset with its loss. It didn't lie though, it simply didn't tell everything.

Unfortunately for this Two-Headed Demon Snake, wisps are extremely intelligent, so Krune started a round of questions and answers.

"I understand the principle. Let me ask, is there no standard form for the foundation? Anything within those two criteria can be considered a foundation? For example, if I build my foundation like an egg instead, white and yolk, does it also works?"

The snake looked strangely at him, white and yolk? Such a weird example, but it answered Krune's question nonetheless

"In theory, it should work. Everyone has their own way of thinking about how to build their foundations. As long as it is acknowledged by the heavens, the formation of the foundation will be a success."

"But there is one thing you must pay attention, the foundation that you are laying down 'MUST' be something that you understand entirely. If you try to create something that you simply think as powerful but have no idea how it works, then it will definitely fail!"

Krune didn't understand one thing.

"I understand the part of being able to understand what you built. But what about this acknowledged by the heavens thing? What do you mean by that?"

The Demon Snake answered dutifully.

"It means exactly that, once your foundation is built, it has to receive the acknowledgment of the heavens. I will give you my own example of how it worked for me. When I finished building my foundation, I felt like the world came in contact with it. Like they were one with each other. That is a very magical feeling. After the acknowledgment ends, that feeling of being one with the world disappears too. From what I heard from the other demon beasts of the Foundation Establishment stage, it was the same with them too."

Krune agreed with that. Being one with the world isn't something someone at their level should be able to do. It was only because the heavens itself was present to check their foundations that that magical state could be achieved for a few moments. Krune then looked back to the snake and asked again.

"So, what happens if you are not acknowledged?"

The snake smiled at Krune.

"Your core or dantian will be destroyed, you will lose all your cultivation, and you will have to start again from zero."

Krune was given a fright! That's because his own life is attached to his Core! If his Core is destroyed, there will be no such thing as a start from zero. He will simply die there and then!

'Now things got tricky! I will have to think through how exactly I want to build my own foundation, and I will have to understand it completely to raise the chances of success too.'

Krune couldn't help but sigh.

'Wisps are really a pitiful race.'

Suddenly, Krune thought about another thing.

"Tell me, is there a chance of failure if you build something that you understand? Also, is there a way to increase the chances of success?"

The snake replied back.

"Yes, you could still fail even if you understand how it works. No one knows why that happens. Maybe it is because you think you understand your foundation, but in fact, you don't. Or maybe is because the foundation you built is not compatible with yourself, who knows?"

"As for if there is a way to increase the chances of success, there are indeed a few tricks for it. The first is to build a standard foundation, something simple to understand. The example I gave you before of the island on the lake is one of those standard foundations, anyone knows how to build such a thing."

"The second would be through the use of alchemist pills like the Foundation Establishment Pills. From what I know, those pills will help you with the modeling of your foundation, they make the broken interior of the Core or dantian easier to be modeled."

Krune understood. No wonder alchemists are so respected, the pills that they can concoct have real heaven-defying effects.

"Is there anything else I should take note when trying to breakthrough into the Foundation Establishment realm?"

The snake nodded

"Yes, but the rest are just complementary. Make sure to have a lot of spiritual energy resources available, spirit stones, and a spiritual vein are good examples. There is also alchemist pills that provide certain amounts of spiritual energy."

"Also, since I'm bound by the contract, I have to tell you this. One of the best sources of spiritual energy for breakthrough is your own race. Whether you mind it or not, wisps spiritual energy can really give a huge burst in the process since their energy is extremely easy to be absorbed."

Krune sighed again but declined to comment. He already expected this when he heard that you need to have a lot of spiritual energy resources ready. The demon snake then continued.

"There is also the time needed, and it changes from being to being. Not only are differences between each one's talent, but there is also the fact of what kind of foundation you intend to build. If it is something simple, then it's fast. If it is something hard, then it's longer."

Krune asked the demon snake another thing.

"Considering that I decide to lay down a simple foundation like the island in the lake, how long would it takes?"

The snake pondered a bit.

"I can't be sure since I don't have too many examples, but I can tell you that I took a whole week to finish my own, and I used this exact island and lake foundation."

"So, make sure to seclude yourself somewhere well hidden if possible. If the process is stopped in the middle, you will fail, and your Core will be destroyed as well."

Krune understood it, but he wasn't very concerned. His spiritual vein can be considered quite safe already. With the lizards taking care of the place and Lakin to take care of the lizards, he should find no problems in the long term. A situation like that cultivator group that came to take Dragon Blood is something very rare to start with. He would need to be truly unlucky to get bothered twice in a roll, he also had one more idea of how to guarantee his safety.

"Anything else?"

The snake just shook its head. It couldn't think about anything else to say. That wisp asked all the important questions, even though it didn't want to answer, it had to.

"Very well, time to get my payment for the trouble you caused me then."

Sweat started to fall down from its back again. It was then that the snake saw Krune taking out another blood contract. It thought about one thing, and its expression became nasty.

"Even if I have to die, I will not become your slave. If you think you can force me to sign a slave blood contract, you might as well kill me first."

Krune looked back at the snake and was a little surprised. Its pride runs through its blood, but that's okay, Krune didn't want to have a slave to start with. He couldn't force the issue either. For the blood contract to work, the one signing it must really agree with it in body and soul, threats are useless in this case.

"You are overthinking it. I don't want you to sign a slave contract, I want you to be my protector until I finish my Foundation Establishment breakthrough. You will have your own free will, and our contract will be finished once I succeed or fail. You will come with me to the borders of the inner part of the Forest and guard me until the process is done."

"Don't think I'm forcing the issue, and I might as well tell you this. Wisps don't have a body, their soul is attached to their Core from the moment they are born. So if I fail, I will die since my Core will be destroyed. You could think about it as a way of getting revenge against me too."

The Two-Headed Demon Snake was very conflicted, then it thought about something.

"Then what if you decide to never breakthrough? Doesn't it mean that I will have to protect you forever?"

Krune just laughed out loud, which puzzled the snake.

"Did you forget from which race I'm from? I'm a wisp! Or could it be that you don't know that wisps can live at most ten years if they don't break through into the Foundation Establishment realm?"

The demon snake was stunned! That's right, wisps have an extremely low life span! It's just that this wisp was so strong that the snake forgot about this issue.

"Very well, I accept those conditions."

Krune was delighted, beasts are really a straight forward bunch. Once they decide one thing, they are very direct about that.

Krune started to write on the contract under the inspection of the demon snake. It is stated that the demon snake shall protect Krune and its underlings until he succeeds or fails in his breakthrough. It doesn't matter the result, once he is done with that, the demon snake is free to go.

It also stated that if he fails, the demon snake can not harm his underlings. It's to prevent the demon snake from taking revenge on his disciple or the Lizard Dragons. The demon snake also agreed with that.

After signing with its blood, the blood contract burnt, and a new restriction was put on the demon snake's soul.

"Good! Then we should go back now. There is rarely any Foundation Establishment beasts or cultivators around there. Even if some appear, they will not try to find a problem with a poison type Foundation Establishment beast like yourself. So you will basically spend your time in leisure until the end of our contract."

But before they left, Krune turned to the spiritual vein and took all the spiritual stones in it. The demon snake didn't think much about it. Once they are gone, some other demon beast is bound to take this spiritual vein for itself. So those spirit stones would change the owner anyway. In that case, the wisp might as well bring it with him.

Krune was a little surprised to find that this spiritual vein wasn't too bad. The spirit stones close to the center of the spiritual vein lake are Rank Two low-quality ones, and those are the best spirit stones he found so far.

On their way back, the demon snake used it's Divine Sense to ask how Krune became so strong even though he is a wisp.

"Hard work and luck, that was pretty much it."

Even though the snake didn't like the answer, Krune wasn't lying. It was luck that brought him together with Feifei and old Feng from which he got the Myriad Energies technique. And it was through hard work and even more lucky that he found about how the real Myriad Energies technique really worked.

Of course, Krune wouldn't tell the snake about his improved version of the Myriad Energies technique. That is his secret, something that might bring calamity upon oneself. The lower the number of people who knows about it, the safer he would be. He was only imparting his cultivation technique to Lakin because he trusted him and he was his disciple too.

Krune was gone for two days only. When he came back, the Lizard Dragons and Lakin were given a fright. Lakin even thought that Krune might have been made as a hostage and forced to show the way back to their lair.

"Alright, everyone, there is no need to be afraid. I made a deal with our friend here, and he won't attack anyone, let me introduce him."

"His name is, his name is... Err..."

Krune looked back at the Two-Headed Demon Snake. If he had his human form already, his face would definitely be as red as a tomato.

"Cough, cough. Now that I think about it, I haven't asked your name yet."

The demon snake was feeling gloomy, it looks like this wisp had never put much thought about it. The demon snake used it's Divine Sense to convene its thoughts to everyone.

"I'm called Ruik. For the time being, I'll be in charge of protecting you all until my contract with Krune is over. Do not call me over unless it's something important."

After that, it simply found a corner to lay down and went to sleep. Other than Krune, it didn't care about any of the others.

Krune didn't mind it either, he knows how prideful Ruik is.

"Alright, everyone, you can go back to whatever you were doing. Lakin, you come with me. There are a few things I need to explain to you too."

Report chapter

Krune decided that it would be better to let Lakin know about the process for breaking through into Foundation Establishment as soon as possible. He will be entering seclusion soon after he figures out what foundation he will build. After entering the next realm, he will leave. Lakin will not be going with him since the outside world is too dangerous for wisps. Not to mention, with the Lizard Dragons around, it would be easier for him to cultivate in peace here.

The Lizard Dragons had long since accepted Krune and Lakin as one of their own group. For them, those wisps are already family, they most likely won't even try to hunt wisps in the future anymore.

Although Lakin was sad. But as a wisp, he had high intelligence. He understood that unless he breaks through the Foundation Establishment, his master will have to protect him all times. And the further his level in the Qi Condensation stage, the harder it would be for his master to protect him.

Of course, he only came to accept this reality after complaining for an entire day. Krune was helpless about this little guy's tantrum. But he kept reminding himself that Lakin is still in his childhood, no more than a few months old, so he let it pass.

In fact, Lakin could be said to be leagues ahead of other wisps in terms of maturity and intelligence at his age. After all, he didn't have to learn everything by himself. For a wisp, to have a teacher is of paramount importance. With this condition applied, any wisp is bound to mature several times faster.

A week passed, but Krune hasn't entered seclusion yet. Turns out that thinking about what to build was harder than he thought.

'It's really difficult. If I go for the standard foundation, I will have high chances to succeed in my breakthrough. But that also means that my foundation will be very ordinary and will have no advantages.'

A few days earlier, Krune had asked Ruik if there is any difference in power after one decides what kind of foundation they will build.

"There is. The more complicated the foundation, the more acknowledgment it will receive from the heavens upon breakthrough. It will provide you more spiritual energy, a better foundation, and consequently a better place for nurturing your future core for the Core Formation realm."

After hearing that, Krune discarded any ideas of using an ordinary foundation. He wanted to make something that could match the geniuses of the world. With an outstanding foundation and his Myriad Energies technique meridians, he would have a big advantage over his opponents. It also would pave his way to the top, he had promised Feifei to find her in the Wang Clan, after all. Without real strength, there would be no way that the Wang Clan would spare even a single glance at him.

After another month, Krune was still in deep thought. He was beside the spiritual vein lake when he heard Lakin and the lizards entering the cave room. Lakin had come back with the Lizard Dragons from hunting, he was already at the 4th stage of Qi Condensation. Compared to Krune, he definitely was slow. Still, compared with any other wisp, he could be considered a genius among geniuses.

Lakin still couldn't deal with the beasts of the inner parts of the Katiu Forest on his own. Still, by partnering with the Lizard Dragons, they became matchless around the mountain range. Lizard Dragons could fight those of higher level because of their Dragon Bloodline, coupled with Lakin's intelligence, they are having an easy time outside.

Lakin looked at Krune and asked.

"Master, is there really a need to build such a difficult foundation? If you fail, you will die. I really think you should go for safety first. Considering the time that you had already spent thinking about it, I'm afraid that whatever ideas that come in mind would lead you to your death during the breakthrough."

Krune looked a little surprised at Lakin, he knows that Lakin was only saying that out of concern. The Lizard Dragons beside him also looked worried. Although they aren't at the 9th stage of Qi Condensation, they already have good intelligence. They could feel that Lakin was very worried about Krune, and they felt like something bad was happening with him.

Krune suddenly laughed out loud.

"Look at you guys, I'm not dead yet, okay?"

Krune's mind went back to when he first found them, and those Lizard Dragons had eaten his demon cores. He felt like someone had eaten himself instead, but today he couldn't help but think how funny his reactions at that time were.

As for Lakin, it was because of him that Krune found out how exactly he was born in this world, that scene was really a sight to behold, it felt like a universe was being created.

Suddenly, Krunes mind was struck by lightning!

'That's it! How could I have forgotten? The Universe, the planet, and the planet's core! Wait, let me think about it more carefully.'

Lakin and the dragons looked puzzled at him, but it seems like his master thought about something, so he asked the Lizard Dragons not to disturb him and went to the side to cultivate.

Krune's mind was working as if it had been in on drugs.

'It should work. I can use the Universe itself to hold the spiritual energy, the planet as the foundation and the core of the planet to nurture my future core. But I will need to think about everything carefully first.'

Surprisingly, the Universe part was the easiest one. There is no need to think about the laws because if there was a need to, even the island in a lake foundation would have its own laws. Still, Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment cultivators are not at the level where they can touch the laws of nature.

So, in the end, the outside Universe is basically void. Of course, Krune couldn't think about making an infinite universe, it would not be able to hold spiritual energy. Also, it is something that should be modeled in his core to start with. So after pondering about his inner core, he came up with the approximate range that his 'universe' would have.

Also, his Universe would have no other stars, only his planet. The purpose of his little Universe is to nurture his world, after all. There is no need to nurture anything else at that moment.

Next, he thought about what format his spiritual energy that would occupy that Universe would take. That's where Lakin came into play. That day when the rainbow-like spiritual energy was dancing and spinning, the feeling that the spiritual energy gave him was as if there was nothing more proper in this world. He couldn't tell exactly why it was 'right.' Still, he knew that it was what he wanted.

Finishing the second part, Krune started to ponder about his own planet. In the end, that was the most complicated part. If he wants to create a planet, it has to be one that really works like one, but then there was an issue.

'There is no sun.'

But it didn't take long for him to come up with an idea.

'The purpose of the spiritual energy of the Universe is to nurture the planet. At first, I'm using the void to store spiritual energy. So why not use the spiritual energy itself to warm up and illuminate the planet. Not only will it make up for the lack of sun, but it should also be even more effective.'

With this problem resolved, Krune started the creation of the planet's atmosphere and the surface itself. Forests, seas, continents, life forms, it had to have everything. That was the part that took the longest. To make sure that everything had been thought of, he spent an entire month thinking about every single detail. The purpose of the foundation is to be acknowledged by the heavens, it doesn't have to be perfect. You just need to be sure to really understand how it works. If perfection was a must, no race in the entire Universe would ever breakthrough into the Foundation Establishment Realm. First of all, even the heavens itself is full of flaws to start with.

After that, he went into the climate, seasons, the poles, so on and so forth. By now, Krune had already spent two entire months pondering about his foundation. He went to Ruik to discuss now and then. The first time Ruik heard about his ideas, he thought that this wisp was courting death. Still, as time passed, Krune ideas seemed to make more and more sense. By now, Ruik is even yearning for Krune to come to it to make more questions and share more of his ideas about the universe foundation. It really looked like it could work.

'This wisp is frightening. Krune is already this strong even before reaching the Foundation Establishment. I wonder what will happen if his universe foundation become acknowledged by the heavens.'

Finally, after thinking and revising the same steps hundreds of times, half a year had passed.

Krune now had started to ponder the most crucial part of his train of thought, the core of the planet! Although it wasn't the most complicated, it was definitely the most important for him as a wisp.

But to Ruik's surprise, Krune was quite relaxed about this point.

"This should be the most dangerous part of your foundation, where does your confidence come from? Don't be hasty, you already spent half a year, take it easy to be sure that no mishaps will happen."

Krune looked at Ruik, a little surprised. It seemed like Ruik was concerned that he might die. He couldn't help but think that by now, he already considered this Two-Headed Demon Snake as a friend. They were first bounded by a contract, but he felt like Ruik wouldn't try anything even if the contract wasn't there.

Ruik also noticed it and felt weird, the demon snake didn't know how to deal with this feeling and shooed Krune away to hide its embarrassment. Krune then left while laughing out loud. His mood and confidence improved even more now.

Six months of coexistence can change one's heart.

But then Krune remembered what Ruik asked and quickly came back to explain, even though the snake was trying to hide its face, Ruik still paid attention.

"So, it's because I'm a wisp. As I told you before, my core and my soul are attached together. For example, if you had failed your Foundation Establishment breakthrough, your core would break, and you would be able to cultivate again. But If I fail, I will die. It does indeed seems like much worse."

"But it's exactly because of that that we wisps understand our cores hundreds of times better than you guys do. It's not a misconception to say that wisps live inside their cores, and the planet in my universe foundation just so happens to need a core too. I intend to build the core of my planet the same way I understand my own core."

"First, it will ensure compatibility and stability, it will be easy to manipulate."

"Second, not only that is it the place where I will nurture my future core for the Core Formation realm, but it is also the place where my soul will reside after the breakthrough. So, the more familiar I am with the place, the better it will be."

This time, Ruik couldn't help but show its face again. It's just that this time he didn't look embarrassed, but astonished.

"You wisps really have a hard time, don't you?"

It couldn't be helped. That's the fate of a race that doesn't have a mortal body. But Krune simply laughed it out.

"Don't worry, I'm confident I will succeed. If I don't believe myself, why should anyone else do so?"

Suddenly, Ruik thought about one thing and decided to warn him.

"Now that I think about it, you said that your soul is one with your core. The process of breaking the interior of your core is bound to be a very dangerous process. At the very least, it is probably going to be extremely painful. You better keep that in mind."

Krune simply agreed with the snake.

"I know, and I have long since understood this fact. So you could say that I've been preparing myself from the moment you told me about breaking the interior of the core to create the foundation."

Ruik simply nodded his head and didn't say anything more. This is, after all, a hurdle that Krune will have to surpass on his own. No one will be able to help him with that.

As expected, it didn't take long for Krune to finish the last part of his preparations. With the core of the planet having the same shape as his inner core, everything else was easy to think and finish theorizing.

A month later, Ruik, Lakin, and the Lizard Dragons were in front of the cave room with the spiritual vein lake. Krune was looking at them tenderly. Those are his friends and, in a certain way, his family.

In the last month, Krune went out to gather spirit stones for his breakthrough. Demon cores would not do because they lose spiritual energy with time. So he assaulted quite a few 8th and 9th stage Qi Condensation beast lairs which had spiritual veins. He didn't kill any of the beasts, only gave them a beating, and took away their spirit stones.

Krune also avoided attacking any Foundation Establishment beast lairs. It was to prevent those beasts from coming back for revenge while he was in the process of breaking through. To his surprise, Ruik had also gone out to help him gather spirit stones for him. But Ruik tried to hide his real feelings, though.

"My contract says that I need to protect you, so by going out and gathering spirit stones will reduce the number of spiritual veins that you need to attack, that's all."

Krune simply laughed and didn't point it out.

In the last seven months, Lakin had finally created all his nine pseudo energy meridians. With Krune's help and pointers, he now had his first Spiritual Energy meridian. Krune still couldn't understand why Lakin, as a wisp too, took so long to reach this step. Lakin was very dedicated in his cultivation that he was already at the 7th stage of Qi Condensation even though he has only one Spiritual Energy meridian. So he could only tell him to keep the hard work, even if he is much slower than Krune, he is still a far cry from any other wisps in this world.

As for the Lizard Dragons, the oldest one has already reached the 8th stage of the Qi Condensation. Once it breaks through the 9th stage, it will finally finish forming its conscience and start to think straightly. The other ones were all at the 7th stage with the youngest having just breakthrough it. This group already had the power to protect the spiritual vein lake on its own.

"Alright, everyone, the time has come. I will ask for you to stay outside and don't come in the spiritual vein lake room. I will need to focus, and the process can't be interrupted. Also, I have no idea how long it will take to finish the process, so there is no need to keep waiting for me outside, just go out and do your own things."

Lakin shouted out loud.

"Master, you will definitely succeed!"

The Lizard Dragons only roared at him.

Krune looked at Ruik and transmitted his thoughts to him using Divine Sense.

"Ruik, if I fail in my Foundation Establishment brea-"

Before he could even finish saying what he wanted, Ruik cut him off.

"Shut up! I'm feeling sleepy, tell me what you want later."

Ruik then turned around and left.

Krune was taken aback. He then just laughed once more.

'Seems like I will have to succeed no matter what.'

Krune used his earth element to close up the entrance to the spiritual vein lake and started the process of breaking through.

Report chapter

Krune was looking at the spirit stones beside the spiritual vein lake. He had almost two thousand of them now, and among them, nearly 300 were Rank Two ones.

'This should be more than enough to breakthrough. According to Ruik, usually, the part that spends the most spiritual energy is breaking the core interior. The more thoroughly the core is broken, the easier it is to model it after. After pondering, we got to the conclusion that the final part, which is to fulfill the 'universe' with spiritual energy, will spend just as much.'

Krune first calmed down and made sure he was at his peak. When he starts breaking down the interior of his core, he doesn't know what he will feel since his own soul is one with the core, after all. But it's certain to be really painful.

Krune started the process, and the spiritual energy of the surroundings started to gather around him. There is plenty of spiritual energy in the air because of the spiritual vein beside him. It will help save quite a lot of spirit stones. Once enough spiritual energy was gathered at the center of his core, Krune forced it into a rampage, barely keeping the control.

"Crack"

As soon as Krune heard the sound of the core cracking, he almost fainted.

Painful!

Extremely painful!

Wisps really have it hard, it felt as if what was breaking wasn't his core but his soul instead. Fortunately, he was prepared for it and managed to keep control over the spiritual energy. But Krune noticed one thing.

'Ruik was right. You can only feel it after you start the process. I can tell that my core is barely holding up from splinting apart. You must have a peak 9th stage Qi Condensation to be able to go through it. Otherwise, the core or dantian won't be resilient enough to resist.'

It turns out that if someone tried to start the breaking down process before reaching the peak of the Qi Condensation stage. The core would immediately break completely. If it didn't, there would be some who would try to enter the Foundation Establishment much earlier. Of course, if such a thing was possible, this cultivator would have a very unstable foundation, so very few would try it anyway.

Crack by crack, Krune kept breaking the core's interior. Every time he used spiritual energy to smash it, he would feel like he wanted to die. An ordinary cultivator would be much faster in this process since even though it would hurt, it was just the core or dantian pain. But Krune is hurting his own soul in the process. He must always wait some time to stabilize his state of mind before continuing the process.

'Ruik said that his breaking down process only took him three days, but the way things are going, I definitely will take much longer than that.'

There is no helping in it. Not only Krune need to stop every time he breaks it, Krune's plan was to keep smashing its interior until he felt that it couldn't be broken any further. His universe foundation is bound to be very difficult to model, so he can't take any chances even if it kills him.

Slowly, an entire month went by.

Inside the spiritual vein lake room, one could hear a grunt coming from a wisp every now and then. Krune had kept at it until now, and he got great harvests.

First, his core interior was truly smashed to powder now. Even though he hasn't finished, the process is going much more smoothly now.

Second, all the pain had tempered his soul to an unbelievable degree. If he tried to use his Divine Sense now, it definitely would be further than a kilometer radius. And that is considering that he is still in the Qi Condensation stage! He couldn't help but think of the old saying.

'With great risks, come great rewards. I already don't need to stop anymore between every break, it still hurts, but it's not unbearable. Also, I feel like I understand now.'

What Krune found out is that he can measure how well broken his core interior is according to the pain that his soul feels.

'If my conjecture isn't wrong, my core's interior will only be perfectly broken when I feel no pain in my soul anymore. That is when I will know that I achieved perfection in the first part of my breakthrough.'

Krune was right, that was an unexpected gain for him. This use of the soul pain to measure the breaking down process is something that only wisps would ever be able to use. But how many wisps out there have tried to enter the Foundation Establishment before? It's bound to be very few and far between. This fact would help Krune achieve something that only great clans and sects can do, which is a perfect foundation.

Those great clans and sects would never divulge their secrets of how to do that. Each one of them had their own ways to ascertain if the core's or datian's interior was perfectly broken. But for someone to use the pain of their souls to find out about that? Only wisps are able to! The impressive thing is that wisps don't even know about the perfect breaking down process.

So the very few wisps who had tried to breakthrough into the Foundation Establishment would go as far as to keep breaking their cores until there is no more pain. They just wanted to get over with this painful process as fast as possible. Because of this, Krune could be said to be one of the firsts, if not the first himself, to ever achieve a perfect breaking down process among the wisps!

And just like that, Krune kept at it, smashing until he couldn't feel even an itchy. After Forty-Five days, Krune suddenly stopped.

'Hum? Did I feel nothing? Other than the rumble of spiritual energy, I couldn't feel anything else after this last smashing with spiritual energy. Anyway, let's try it a few more times.'

Krune gathered spiritual energy and tried to use it to break the interior. Still, he couldn't feel anything at all. It was as if the spiritual energy flowed around his core without any obstacle. His core interior couldn't even be said to be powder anymore, it looked like clay instead.

'Seems like this is it. I can't wait longer anyway. According to Ruik, once you have decided that the core's interior can't be broken any further, you must start the modeling straight away. Otherwise, it will lose its balance, and the process will fail.'

Krune then started the modeling process, and he had thought about it hundreds of times. He would first open the space that was supposed to be his small universe. By removing the clay-like interior out of the way, it didn't take long for him to create a void in between his core-shell and what will come to be his planet foundation later on. One must understand that once the breaking down process is concluded, the core or dantian shell will increase in size. This is a matter, of course. Otherwise, the cultivators would not be able to model anything since there would be no space to do so.

To form the void was the easy part, there was nothing to be modeled there. After that came the hard one, to use his spiritual energy to model a world. A whole world with everything it had. Of course, at a much smaller scale, and with fewer things on it. But even so, it's bound to take a lot of time anyway.

Krune wasn't sad though, after all the pain of the breaking down and the tempering of his soul as a reward, Krune was very ecstatic. He could feel that he was a step closer to the Foundation Establishment. Krune then started the modeling process. First, the planet itself, leaving just an area big enough to store his soul and his future golden core.

After that, he started to model the surface. First, he created the atmosphere since it is necessary to hold the air, regulate the seasons, and stop things like the ocean to evaporate to the universe. After that came the seas, almost all life came from water, so the seas and oceans came second. Terrestrial life forms need land to walk, so the continents came in third. Energy is necessary to give birth to life. Usually, it would be provided by the sun.

Still, Krune didn't have one, so he used his rainbow-like spiritual energy that he had thought before to nurture the seas and lands. As for that rainbow-like spiritual energy alone, he spent almost 1000 spirit stones. After all, his enclosed universe was much bigger than something like the island in the lake foundation.

Then came the life forms, forests, animals, so on and so forth, this planet modeling would take a very long time. Still, Krune didn't care, he paid attention to every detail, and revised them several times. The time isn't a problem, Krune had just recently become 4 years old, he is still quite a young wisp.

It had already been three months since the start of the planet modeling process. By now, Krune had already finished his little planet. He spent the last two weeks revising it and making corrections here and there. Time seemed to have no meaning for Krune anymore. All that matters is his foundation. But today, Krune finally arrived at the conclusion that he can't do anything further to his little planet.

'I revised it hundreds of times, and I can't find anything else to fix. At most, I would just change the position of some places. That wouldn't be because they are wrong, but because they would look better in the eyes. Still, I won't do that, a planet isn't something born to look good. It is a balance, as long as the key points are there, the planet itself wouldn't care about how it looks like. If I do that, my planet might even be rejected by the heavens instead. One must remember that even heavens isn't perfect, let alone a planet. My chances will be better if I keep it as close as possible of the real thing.'

'Now then, its time to created a home for my soul and my future golden core.'

Krune had heard from Ruik that when you breakthrough the Core Formation stage, your core will be golden like. But Ruik only heard about that himself too, so he isn't sure about the details.

'Also, my soul feels like it had been vagrant all around inside my core. This feeling of not being attached really makes me feel uncomfortable, so I hope everything goes as planned. I intended to build the planet core to be compatible with what my soul had before my breakthrough process. But I will only know if it was a good idea after I finish it.'

In fact, the core of the planet would be quite easy to finish since it was going to more or less be a copy of what his core was before. The only difference is that at the very center is the place where his future golden core will be nurtured. The idea is that his soul will live together with his future golden core. Krune doesn't know if this is a good idea or not, but he decided that it is worth a try.

'From what I heard from Ruik, I must leave the place where my future golden core will be nurtured completely empty. It must have no obstacles and enough space.'

After another ten days, Krune had finally finished everything. Before concluding the process, he decided that it was better to attach his soul back to the core first. That's because he is afraid that he might not be able to go back when he finishes his breakthrough. His foundation might consider as if he wasn't supposed to be there. Different from other races, his soul must be part of the foundation itself, he has no other choice.

'Alright, everything is done. Now I just need to complete the process and wait for the heavens to check my foundation. I've been here for three and a half months, and Ruik said that the time spent to finish the foundation creation doesn't matter. Still, he also has never heard about anyone taking more than a month to finish it, let alone more than three.'

What determines whether the foundation creation is over or not is the flow of spiritual energy. That's also why Krune gathered so many spirit stones. If the flow of spiritual energy is interrupted before finalizing the modeling, the process will be considered a failure. So he had to be sure to have enough spirit stones available, and it was the same for everyone as well. At the same time, you need to stop the flow of spiritual energy by yourself after finishing the modeling. By doing so, the new foundation will try to gather spiritual energy by itself from heaven and earth, and the process will be finished.

The moment that the new foundation tries to gather the spiritual energy from the outside world is the moment that the heavens feel it's existence. It will then check if it's in according to its rules.

By now, during those three months of creation, Krune had already used almost all of his spirit stones. No more than a hundred were left in the end. Fortunately, he didn't damage his spiritual vein lake, after staying so long in this place, he couldn't help but feel a little attachment. It might be a low-grade spiritual vein, but it had helped him and his companions a lot. Krune calmed his thoughts and made up his mind.

'Alright, this is the moment. It all depends on whether the heavens like it or not.'

Krune cut the flow of spiritual energy and waited. Not long after, his foundation seemed to come to life. It started to absorb the spiritual energy from heaven and earth through his Spiritual Energy Meridians. Krune was also able to confirm one of his guesses from the past. Before, he couldn't use all his three Spiritual Energy Meridians at full power. He always thought that it was because his core was too weak, and turns out that he was right. As soon as the foundation started to absorb the spiritual energy, his Spiritual Energy Meridians started to work at full power. Krune felt relieved with that.

But he didn't have time to check, that's because soon, he felt as if the world around him disappeared. It was like there was only him left in the world as a whole. Suddenly, a comfortable sensation assaulted his soul. It was like all the laws of the world were at his grasp. He understood what was happening, the heavens had descended to check on his foundation. He could feel that every part of his core was being run by some kind of energy, and it was a very magical feeling.

It didn't last long, though. No more than a minute. In fact, Krune's check-up by the heavens already lasted much longer than it would for someone else. It's proof that his foundation is much more complicated compared to any other ordinary one. Of course, Krune didn't know that.

After that, that energy simply disappeared as if it had never been there. Krune checked his core foundation, and it didn't feel like it was going to break apart anytime soon. Not only that, it was fortifying as the seconds passed by.

'Does it mean that I succeed?'

Krune was just about to celebrate when suddenly, he noticed something wrong.

'Wait! Where is my future golden core?'

Once you enter the Foundation Establishment, your foundation will create a core that will be nurtured until you are ready to enter the Core Formation realm. It isn't a real core though, it's more like a pseudo core, but in his case, the core was nowhere to be seen.

He didn't have time to think for long, though. That's because suddenly, he could feel a lot of spiritual energy congregating above him. Krune is inside of the cave room, so he couldn't see what was happening outside. But it felt like the entire world itself was angry at him.

In the middle of the cave, Ruik was sleeping when suddenly, he felt the spiritual energy of the world starting to gather above the mountain range. He then immediately rushed outside to see what was happening. When he looked up to the sky, his heart almost stopped. He knows what it is because he had seen it happen before from a distance.

"How could that be?"

The more he looked at it, the more frightened he felt.

"Heavenly... Tribulation!"

Moments later, Krune rushed out as well. Ruik noticed him and was surprised.

"You succeed in your breakthrough!"

Krune heard Ruik, but he couldn't pay attention to him at the moment. He keeps feeling that something is wrong with those clouds in the sky, and his instincts are screaming danger without stopping. Only after a few seconds, he looked at Ruik.

"Do you know what is happening? As soon as I succeed in my breakthrough, those clouds came, and I can even feel that they are targeting me."

Krune's words left Ruik alarmed!

"What? They came for you? That shouldn't be possible! Heavenly Tribulation is something that should only happen when you are entering the Core Formation or higher realms. There is no way it is here for you!"

Krune didn't expect that. To think that's something that only Core Formation cultivators and above should see, he couldn't help but wonder if this is also because he is a wisp. However, he immediately rejected the idea. If anything, the heavens would rather look down on wisps. Most likely, it has something to do with his Universe Foundation or his Myriad Energies Technique. Krune quickly got back on track, this isn't time to ponder why it's happening but finding a way to deal with it.

"Ruik, I can't say why it came for me since I have no idea, but it's definitely targeting me. Most likely, it has something to do with my universe foundation, but let's talk about it later. If you know what it is, then tell me fast."

Although Ruik still couldn't believe it, he knows that Krune wasn't joking either, he quickly calmed himself and started to explain.

"I don't know much myself either. But simply put, to cultivate is the same as going against the will of the heavens. So, once you enter the Core Formation realm, the heavens will send down Tribulation Lightning to wipe out that anomaly. You can also consider it as a test. I have seen a tribulation from a distance before. Of course, I dared not get close to it. I heard that no one can help the target with his Tribulation, either. It seems like if they do, the power of the Tribulation will only increase, and they will also become targets. Also, keep in mind the area around you will be affected as well, so you better don't let anyone get close to you."

Krune was alarmed! Tribulation lightning? He is a wisp! How the hell will he even be able to resist such a thing? If there is one thing that Krune had always done, that was always to keep his distance from his opponents. A wisp energy body is very weak. Any serious hit will not simply tear it apart. It will hit his core directly too. Now he needs to go through such a calamity? Fu*k you, Heavens! Although he wanted to complain more, Krune quickly calmed his mind instead. No point in getting angry now. There is lightning coming at him, and he needs to find a way to block it.

Unfortunately for Krune, Ruik's next words made him almost fall in despair.

"Oh right, tribulation lightning always comes in batches of nine strikes, so you will need to hold on all nine hits, or you are done for."

Krune wanted to cry but had no tears (Literally). What the hell is it? One lightning strike is probably enough to turn his core to a crisp already. But there are, in fact, nine strikes coming down. Krune howled to the heavens.

"Are you kidding me?!"

No one answered, though.

"Ruik, how long do I have until it comes down?"

Ruik pondered a bit before answering.

"I'm not sure myself, but last time when I saw the Heavenly Tribulation, it took around ten minutes from the time I sensed it to the time when the first lightning came down."

Krune understood that the Tribulation Lightning needs time to charge first. From the time he completed his breakthrough until now, only two minutes had passed, so he has at least more eight minutes if Ruik isn't wrong.

Just as Krune was about to leave, Lakin came out too. As for the Lizard Dragons, they are so frightened that they didn't dare coming outside. The power of Tribulation Lightning is especially effective on demon beasts.

"Master, what is happening?"

Krune just looked at him.

"I can't explain now, just go back into the cave, this isn't something you can help with."

Lakin was taken aback with such a blunt answer from his master. Lakin didn't understand what's happening, but he wasn't happy with Krune's answer either. He wanted to help even though he didn't know what the situation is, Lakin had always felt like he was a burden and wanted to change it.

"But master, I have already broken through the 8th stage, and I finally created my second Spiritual Energy Meridian, I can definitely help!"

Krune felt like giving him a beating now. The situation is already as bad as it is, and his disciple decided to throw a tantrum at such a moment. Krune was about to shout back at him when suddenly, his mind felt like it was the first to be struck by lightning instead. He then looked back at Lakin, surprised.

"Repeat what you said."

Repeat? Perhaps his master hasn't heard him well.

"I said that I'm at the 8th stage already."

"No, not that, after that."

Lakin thought that his master acting weird but answered him anyway.

"Is it the part where I said I opened my second Spiritual Energy Meridian?"

Krune was ecstatic, he finally saw a sliver of hope and laughed out loud.

"That's it! Well done, Lakin! You have just given me an idea. You two, stay far away to not get in the range of the Tribulation. Ruik, explain things to him, I need to hurry."

Ruik sent a Divine Sense message to Lakin, and the later finally understood the situation. Just as he was about to say something, Krune had already used his wind movement and rushed out to find an open space.

Ruik was astonished when he saw that.

'What kind of speed is that? He just broke through the Foundation Establishment, but he is as fast as an ordinary 5th stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, maybe even 6th stage! Is that REALLY a wisp?'

Krune didn't have time to pay attention to Ruik's two faces at the moment, he then quickly calmed his mind and concentrated. He looked up and thought.

'You want to wipe me out? Then see how I shall eat you!'

Krune has already decided, he absolutely doesn't have anything able to block a lightning strike, much less nine of them. Since he can't block it, then he won't.

'My Spiritual Energy Meridians can absorb all types of energies as long as there is spiritual energy involved. I'm sure this heavenly Tribulation definitely isn't just normal lightning, either. I'm absolutely certain that it is made purely of spiritual energy. Since that's the case, today, I will have a feast!'

But there is a problem, there is no way that Krune can absorb so much energy at once. In fact, his Spiritual Energy Meridians would not be able to convert anything above their max capacity. Not to mention that those lightning strikes definitely have much more energy than his meridians can absorb and convert.

'And that's why I only have one alternative.'

Krune didn't focus on his three Spiritual Energy Meridians. Instead, he put all his thoughts into creating more of them. He wasn't going to create a single one, but three Spiritual Energy Meridians at the same time!

'There is only one moment where my Spiritual Energy Meridians absorb spiritual energy like black holes, and it is at the moment that they are created. Every time I create a new meridian, it absorbs several times more spiritual energy than the previous one. Since that's the case, If I can create three at the same time, maybe the energy of the Heavenly Tribulation will just suffice these criteria.'

Although that was the plan, Krune had never created more than one meridian at once. Not to mention that it usually would take a lot of time to do it. But it's not that Krune couldn't do it fast, it's just that the process is really complicated. He needs to keep the balance between all nine pseudo energy meridians until they fuse together, and this is a very delicate job. Still, Krune has no time for that now.

'It's do or die! But it's not like I don't have an advantage now.'

Krune was right. The biggest improvement with his Foundation Establishment isn't his cultivation. He hasn't even stabilized his cultivation to start with. As for taking the human form, he can't use it yet. That's because his process of breakthrough isn't over, and his future golden core hasn't appeared in his foundation yet. Which means that it probably will only be over when the Heavenly Tribulation is done with.

What Krune was think about was Divine Sense! Krune already tried it out, his Divine Sense now has a total of three kilometers of radius! But that's not the part that will help him at the moment. What helps is having greater control over spiritual energy. As mentioned before, when a cultivator opens his Divine Sense, his control over spiritual energy improves several folds. Not to mention that Krune's Divine Sense is already as good as someone at the late stages of the Foundation Establishment!

Krune didn't spare any spiritual energy while keeping his Divine Sense at max power. He only has seven minutes to finish all three of them anyway. If he can't do that, then what's the use for the remaining spiritual energy after he's dead?

Krune wasn't having a nice time, though, create a Spiritual Energy Meridian is a stringent process that puts a lot of burden on the mind. Let alone create three at the same time and have to finish it in just a few minutes. After two minutes, Krune's was feeling pain in his soul already. If not for the tempering of the breaking down process, he might have fainted right there and then.

Krune didn't dare to slack off, though. That's because he isn't planning to finish it within the last five minutes. The reason is simple, that's a time based on what Ruik saw in the past. Not to mention that was a Core Formation realm tribulation to start with. Who said that his Foundation Establishment Tribulation will take the same time to come down? Krune wasn't going to take chances. If everything went well with his Meridians' creation just to be shot dead moments before completing them, it would really be an unsatisfying death.

'Two more minutes, I will finish them in only two more minutes! When the time comes to give the final push in the meridians fusion, I will stop there and wait. Although I don't know if the lightning could come earlier, I also don't know if it could come later. If that happens and I don't have any spiritual energy to feed my new meridians, they will simply break apart. I will definitely not be in the condition to recreate them again, not to mention that I might not even have the time to do so anyway.'

Time passed, and Krune's soul was screaming in pain. But he ignored all of it. In his mind, there was only the three Spiritual Energy Meridians in front of him. Pain? What's that? During this time, there was no such thing as pain, no such thing as Tribulation, no distractions at all. His spiritual energy was running down fast, though. After all, not only is he keeping his Divine Sense at full power, the creation of the meridians themselves also consumes spiritual energy. Fortunately, he had just broken through, so he was at his peak condition when he started.

Crackling sounds could now be heard from above, and the world in a hundred-kilometer radius was dark. It felt like the sun would never appear again. The oppressive energy from the Heavenly Tribulation made all beasts to lie down trembling. The only ones doing fine at the moment were Ruik and Lakin. One was at the Foundation Establishment while the other ignored everything and only paid attention to Krune.

Ruik was looking attentively to the sky, suddenly he noticed something.

"Not good, I think its coming down faster than that time when I watched the tribulation happening."

But after thinking for a moment, he quickly calmed down. He knows very well how intelligent Krune is, and there is no way that Krune hadn't thought about such a possibility. Even if he hasn't, there is nothing they can do anyway. Heavenly Tribulation is something that must be conquered alone.

Krune was almost fainting when he finally finished creating the three meridians. But he couldn't relax at all, not to mention that he finished the process, but it still needs its final push. Krune will need to keep that balance until the lightning comes down. He can't finish it earlier, or he will be done for. The problem is, to keep this balance is just a strenuous as the creative process itself. He won't be able to hold it for much longer.

Fortunately for Krune, he was right about the time that the Tribulation would be coming down before ten minutes. Krune then looked up to the sky. Although the Tribulation hasn't come down yet, he could now feel when it was going to happen. Krune gave the final push, and then the three Spiritual Energy Meridians were finished.

"Click, click, click"

Krune heard the familiar sound, and just a few moments later, the three meridians started to absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth as if it was air. In a second, all the spiritual energy from the surroundings disappeared without a trace. The spiritual energy absorption was so terrifying that even Krune's own spiritual energy started to flow into the meridians, and Krune couldn't stop it at all! If it continued like that, he would be sucked to death in the next seconds. Fortunately for him, his prediction was right, the first bolt came crashing down like a divine beast of lightning, it was determined to end all life.

Too bad, though. Krune's three new Spiritual Energy Meridians seemed like they had smelled the tastiest food of all time. They immediately moved above Krune, and surprisingly, they enlarged? Krune wasn't sure if it was hallucination or reality. Still, he didn't have time to think anyway. His meridians then ate up the lightning down in a second! Krune could only wonder if that thing was really a Heavenly Tribulation Lightning at all.

'Holy crap! All that energy wasn't enough to even fill the hole in the teeth of those guys! How do you all expect me to create more meridians in the future when your appetite only grows with more of you around?'

Krune thought that, but he wasn't the least bit sad. It just shows how powerful his Spiritual Energy Meridians are. As for the spiritual energy necessary for the future meridians, he can think about that later.

The second lightning came down, and just like the first one, it was eaten up entirely. Then the third, the fourth, the fifth, all the spiritual energy of the lightning disappeared inside of Krune's Spiritual Energy Meridians as if they were drops of water falling in the ocean. You couldn't even see a trace of them anymore.

This process continued all the way up to the 8th tribulation lightning. Only after this last one did his Spiritual Energy Meridians finally set down. They returned to their original size, and the creation process was finished again.

It was supposed to be a joyous moment, but Krune wasn't the least bit happy after seeing it.

"Fu*k you! There is still one more lightning to come down, can't you three eat a little more?"

Krune received no answer, though. Krune felt gloomy but quickly regained his composure. He looked up to the sky, most of the clouds in the distance had been cleared already. It was evident that the next bolt will be the last one. Crackling sounds could be heard from above, Krune then made up his mind and shouted to the heavens.

"I said that I'm going to eat you, didn't I? Until now, the only ones feeding were my meridians. After all this shit, my core is almost completely empty anyway, and I refuse to believe that you won't provide a good meal!"

Krune then pointed all his six Spiritual Energy Meridians to the sky.

As if hearing Krune's provocation, the last bolt came down!

Just before it hit, Krune noticed something strange, and if he had his human form, he would definitely be giving a bitter smile.

'Is it me, or this last Tribulation Lightning seems a lot stronger than the previous ones?'

Krune was right. In fact, the last tribulation lightning is very famous outside, the cultivators even gave it an adorable name too.

Life Ending Strike.

Krune, of course, still doesn't know about this awesome nickname.

The Lightning struck Krune's six Spiritual Energy Meridians. Immediately, they started to work at full power. Still, there was too much energy to be absorbed and converted. If this continued like that, he wouldn't be able to hold back anymore.

'I have to redirect the energy somewhere. But the problem is, the Heavenly Tribulation is targeting me, it definitely won't go anywhere else.'

Sparks flew everywhere, Krune energy body was almost disappearing, and his core would soon be affected. Suddenly, Krune had an idea.

'I need to send the energy somewhere, but it can only target me. In that case, what if I send it directly into my universe foundation without waiting for conversion? Other than the planet itself, my universe is basically void. There should be no problem in releasing all the tribulation power there. After all, the void is also considered to be me.'

Krune didn't have time to ponder about the pros and cons, and he had to act now. Krune immediately stopped the converting of energy process and opened his meridians fully to let all the energy pass through. All the Lightning seemed to have found a path which it could follow and rushed inside. As soon as the tribulation lightning appeared in his universe foundation, it started to rampage around. Fortunately, it was all void, there was nothing to be destroyed to start with.

Krune kept absorbing more Lightning, and a few moments later, all the energy of the tribulation was now flashing all around his universe foundation. Krune knows that this is just the start, and he can't simply leave the tribulation lightning moving around freely in his universe. This is a Heavenly Tribulation, it won't merely disappear, and it will keep running around until it finds a target.

Krune then focused on his universe foundation. Here, he is a god! When the Lightning first struck, Krune had initially used his energy meridians to convert it into spiritual energy. Only after noticing that he wouldn't be able to convert everything did he open his channels and let the Lightning go through. Fortunately, he had already restored almost all his spiritual energy before it happened.

Krune pondered for a bit. Unless the tribulation lightning finds a target, it won't go away, and there is only one thing that can be used as a target in his universe foundation. His planet!

'But this shouldn't be a problem, I don't need to guide the entire tribulation at once to strike my planet, I can do that slowly.'

And so he did. With the spiritual energy available to him in his core, he started to bait the tribulation lightning everywhere until it got separated in various small tribulations. Slowly, he guided one of them to his planet.

'This is the moment of the truth.'

The lightning tribulation seemed to have smelled something and rushed straight to the planet. The planet wasn't big to start with, even though the interior of the core space is warped, so it is much bigger than the appearance from outside, it had its limit. So Krune's planet wasn't much bigger than a few kilometers. The tribulation lightning then struck it directly. Immediately, the entire world seemed to have lightning sparks running all around its body.

Krune's soul wasn't having a good time either. Lightning element, especially one made of pure spiritual energy, is very effective against soul forms. With this one single strike, the pain that Krune felt wasn't the least bit inferior to when he first started breaking his core down. Fortunately, it was still bearable.

After a few minutes, the Lightning finally lost it's power and disappeared. Krune was feeling bitter. This was only the first one, and he had over a hundred strands of Lightning that he left running around in his universe. But he quickly made his mind. He needs to get over with it soon. Otherwise, the tribulation might find it's way to his planet and strike all at once. If that happens, there won't be even a trace of Krune's soul after that.

Lightning after Lightning struck the surface of Krune's little planet, but this situation wasn't without rewards. Krune's soul is being tempered even further now. Every time one lightning struck, he would go through an unimaginable amount of pain. Still, he could feel the power of his soul, strengthening bit by bit. He was familiar with this feeling from when he was breaking down his core.

Five bolts of Lightning, ten bolts of Lightning, twenty bolts of Lightning, fifth, eighty, a hundred. Krune was already on the verge of fainting when finally, the final strand of tribulation lightning was guided to his planet. Krune's face showed determination, and he faced the last lightning head-on! That's right, Krune knows that the Lightning also helped his soul tempering, so he decided that the last strand would fall directly in his soul.

"I said I was going to eat you, and I will keep my word!"

This time, Krune really felt he was going to die. But it wasn't long before the lightning power finally ran out. Krune could finally let out a sigh of relief.

'It's over.'

Just as he was about to start meditating to recover himself, that feeling of being one with the world returned.

'This... That's right, the golden core formation!'

Krune was right, he could feel the energy of the world again. It was something different from any other energy, spiritual energy included. It started to congregate in the place that he had prepared for his future golden core, but suddenly, something unexpected happened.

"The hell?! This thing isn't golden at all!"

Krune had heard from Ruik that his own future golden core was also golden from the start. It's just that the golden color it had was very weak. From what Ruik heard from other demon beasts, this is the normal process. The higher your stage in the Foundation Establishment, the stronger the golden color in the golden core becomes. It seems that when you arrive at the 9th stage, the golden core will be completely golden, showing that you are ready to enter the Core Formation realm.

The problem is, Krune's future core wasn't golden. In fact, it didn't have just one color. His future golden core, which isn't golden to start with, looked more like a rainbow.

"Maybe the heavens felt pity of me and brought some candy for me to eat."

Of course, that was just some bullshit Krune thought in passing. There was no way such a thing could happen. But still, why is his core so... colorful? But it wasn't over, just as the core was about to be completely formed, Krune felt the power of the tribulation lightning again. It turns out that his planet was struck by Lightning so many times that it had kept some of it in its interior. Just a moment before his future 'rainbow' core was finished, that strand of Lightning hit it.

Krune was alarmed, as soon as it was struck, it started to tremble and jump all over like it was popcorn. Krune could only pray in his heart.

'Please don't break, please don't break, please don't break...'

If his future rainbow core broke, his Foundation Establishment breakthrough would most likely be considered a failure. And the outer core would be destroyed too. Only death awaits him if that happens.

Fortunately, after a few minutes, it stopped jumping around. It regained its rainbow-like color, and the world energy finished its formation. It was now lying quietly in the center of Krune's planet core. But there was something different about it now, one could see some lightning sparks running around it.

"What kind of situation is this? First, I get a child's candy as my future golden core. Well, not golden anymore, though, and now this candy has Lightning running around it. I might as well pretend to be a clown and give it to the first kids I find beside the streets. Even if the Lightning doesn't let them eat it, it will still look like a fun toy."

Of course, such thought was basically done because of Krune's gloominess. He couldn't really give his future core away like that. It's just that he had to go through so much shit to complete his Foundation Establishment breakthrough that wanted to vent somewhere.

Before, Krune had paid a few visits to the nearby villages of the Katiu forest secretly. Coincidence or not, he found out what a clown is during one of those visits.

'It might have something to do with my foundation, the spiritual energy in my little universe is also rainbow-like, so this is probably the reason.'

Krune then put those thoughts behind his mind, he looked at the rainbow core, and it seems that it won't do anything for the time being. So he decided to go back to the spiritual vein lake.

On the way, he met with Ruik and Lakin.

"Master, you survived! That's great!"

Ruik also commented.

"Now then, you have finished your breakthrough, so our contract is over. I think that a Foundation Establishment is pretty good for cultivation too, so what about give yourself to me?"

Krune just laughed it out.

"Give myself to you? Does it mean you fell in love with my awesomeness? I'm sorry, but I have a fiance already."

Ruik immediately went red from anger.

"Scram!"

He turned back and entered the cave again.

Both Lakin and Krune laughed even harder, Lakin looked back at Krune and asked.

"Master, is everything over? Is there something you need help with?"

Krune was happy with his concern.

"I'm okay, except for the fact that I feel like a pile of shit, I'm pretty much fine. Let's go back to the spiritual vein lake, I need some time to recover."

After returning to the spiritual vein lake, Krune went to find Ruik straight away, and Lakin followed out of curiosity too. He then explained about his situation and how his future core looked like some rainbow candy with Lightning around it.

Lakin didn't know much about it to start with, so he just listened. As for Ruik, his eyes looked like he was seeing an anomaly.

"I know quite a few Foundation Establishment beasts, but all of us have the same type of golden core. The only difference is how much golden they are depending on our cultivation stages."

Ruik pondered for a bit and then continued.

"But I must remind you that Katiu Forest isn't a big place to start with, and there are way too many things out there that we don't know. There might be some other Foundation Establishment cultivators with a situation like yours. It was the first time I've heard about a Heavenly Tribulation falling before the Core Formation realm. Still, due to the lack of information we have here, it could have happened outside."

Krune agreed with his train of thought, there is now one more reason for him to leave. He then went ahead with another question.

"So, how this 'nurturing the golden core' works? Do I need to cultivate as usual, or is there some secret to it?"

Lakin also paid attention to this question. Thanks to his master, he really has a chance at the Foundation Establishment too. Ruik then looked at him and answered.

"There is. In fact, this isn't a secret, and you would find out about that sooner or later. The core in the center of the foundation can be nourished by sending spiritual energy directly into it. Once it feels the presence of spiritual energy, it will absorb the energy by itself. You just need to keep applying more spiritual energy until it stops absorbing. That is when your future core is ready to breakthrough into the next stage of the Foundation Establishment. Of course, you can't neglect your foundation either, try to remember what I said about my island in the lake foundation."

Krune pondered a little and found this memory. Ruik had said before that the lake holds the spiritual energy. It is then used to strengthen the island foundation. When the island gets sturdy enough, you can breakthrough into the next stage. Krune then waited for Ruik to continue speaking.

"You can think about it as preparing the foundation for a natural calamity. The breakthrough of each stage comes followed by a huge explosion of spiritual energy. If your future core or your foundation can't resist it, it will break apart. Your planet foundation is definitely top-ranked, so it should take even longer to improve it due to its size."

After hearing that, Krune asked again.

"So, which one should I nurture first, the foundation or the core?"

Ruik answered straight away.

"The core should be first since it is very fast. Although the planet will take a long time to be reinforced and stabilized, the core inside it doesn't need any of it. The core is different from your foundation. Take my future golden core as an example. It kept absorbing spiritual energy for an entire week without stop. But after that, it never accepted spiritual energy again. If you want, you can do it even faster, you just need to gather more spirit stones and suck then dry. As long as the future core has enough space for spiritual energy, it will accept everything."

"If I calculate the total spiritual energy that I used to fill up my golden core, I guess 200 to 300 Rank One spirit stones of middle or high quality should be enough."

Krune mentally noted down all this information. It wasn't that complicated in the end. Basically, nurture the core, then nurture the foundation, and finally, breakthrough to the next stage.

After conversing for a little longer, Krune went to the side of the spiritual vein lake and started to recover himself. He decided to take a few days of break to relax a little and think about his next steps.

After a week, Krune was back at peak condition. He decided that he will first gather some spirit stones from the nearby spiritual veins and get over with the first stage of his rainbow core. Krune had utterly given up the idea of using only the natural spiritual energy to feed his rainbow core or his planet foundation. He is a wisp, even though he is at the Foundation Establishment now, he only got another ten years of life span. He is four years old at moment, which means that he only has another sixteen years to breakthrough the Core Formation realm bottleneck.

He also wanted to try out the differences of being in the next realm. Exactly how stronger has he got? How better can he control his spiritual energy after the last tempering of his soul? His Divine Sense is out of the charts, and no one at his level has a Divine Sense as powerful as his. So he needs to test if demon beasts at the same cultivation level as himself can detect it. Finally, he has to stabilize and reinforce his foundation too. Krune can feel that the rainbow-like spiritual energy in his 'universe' isn't flowing smoothly yet.

In that case, what else is better to achieve all of that other than battle?

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