2025-01-01 16:42:19Eadric Rong's entire vision became blurry as he opened his eyes.
"Where am I? What happened?"
This incident felt like deja vu. Fainting, then waking up, so repeatedly.
However, this time, Eadric Rong woke up in a dark cave. Another difference was that it was already night.
Moonlight entered through the cave door, providing minimal illumination.
"Lighters!" whispered Eadric Rong. "I have to make a torch!"
As an outer court student who also worked in the kitchen, Eadric Rong always carried a lighter. Before long, he was seen blowing on it, and the lighter was lit.
With a joyful heart, Eadric Rong lit a fire on a piece of wood containing resin, a kind of flammable sap.
When the fire had illuminated the cave, his face immediately paled.
"Demon Umbrella Elder? What happened?" Subconsciously, he took a few steps back, unable to watch the figure die with a pool of blood around him. A rancid odor stabbed into his nostrils, making the boy almost vomit.
Eadric Rong rushed out of the cave to get some fresh air.
As he ran, he felt a sting in his stomach. However, fear of Kyron Mo's corpse forced him to keep running until he arrived at the cave door.
He took a deep breath of fresh air.
Remembering the pain in his stomach, Eadric Rong opened his tunic and saw the wound that was causing the pain down below. At that time, his abdomen was wrapped in cloth, but there was still blood dripping there.
"Wound? How can I have a stomach wound?" Eadric Rong's face revealed panic. "Is this the work of the Umbrella Demon Elder? Does he want to do something evil to me?" thought Eadric Rong anxiously.
However, he soon calmed down after remembering that the Umbrella Demon Elder was dead.
"What else should I be afraid of? Isn't that Umbrella Demon Elder already dead?" Eadric Rong ventured.
Soon, with a makeshift torch, he re-entered the cave. He looked with pity at the figure of the Umbrella Demon lying dead in a terrible state.
"After all, he was an elder. I'd better bury him so that he dies honorably."
That night, under the dim moonlight, Eadric Rong hobbled around piling stones to make a tomb for the older man. To him, the older man deserved to be honored at the end of his life.
The grave was completed, and the tombstone was handwritten using natural chalk from forest plants. This work was done until the early hours of the morning. Afterward, Eadric Rong stood at the simple tomb to pay his last respects.
"Rest in peace," he said as he stuck a long branch in place of incense for the final tribute.
Feeling tired from not sleeping all night, Eadric Rong entered the cave.
"How can I sleep when there's so much blood here?" he complained.
According to the Chen period (ancient clockwork), Eadric Rong finished piling up the soil in the blood-filled cave until the sun shone at around nine in the morning.
"Time to sleep and figure out how to escape this wretched hole!"
As Eadric Rong was about to lie down on a pile of dry straw, suddenly, his hand touched an object.
"A letter written in blood?" inner Eadric Rong was shocked. "Is this the handwriting of that Umbrella Demon Elder?"
He wondered. His curiosity peaked when he saw the handwriting made of blood on a tattered piece of cloth. The writing was fresh, not yet dried.
At first, he wanted to ignore the handwriting. Sleepiness and fatigue were stronger, inviting him to close his eyes. However, he was stopped in his tracks when he read the title at the top of the copy.
"Demon Umbrella Artifact Inheritance!"
Full of curiosity, Eadric Rong read one by one the writings with the title of inheritance.
The gist of the handwriting was that Kyron Mo appointed Eadric Rong as his heir. He left him a single umbrella, a deadly weapon the older man had once wielded worldwide in ancient times.
The sun had risen high, but Eadric Rong had yet to sleep. He was still lost in thought, thinking about the inheritance the older man named Kyron Mo had told him about. In his hand was a rectangular box, similar to an umbrella but not an umbrella.
"So this is the inheritance of that old man who claimed to be famous? How could he confidently give me this piece of junk?" disappointed Eadric Rong.
A moment later, he saw one line of a sentence written in short: "Cultivation technique, gathering pure air!" Eadric Rong's eyes fell on the sentence that mentioned the old grandfather's version of the cultivation technique, who called himself Umbrella Demon.
The custom in significant sects is that outer court disciples, let alone working disciples like Eadric Rong, are not taught cultivation techniques. Even if they are, everything has to be paid for with contribution points.
Why is that? Because the sects didn't want to allocate resources to a child who might not be a genius. So, for a worker disciple like Eadric Rong, he could only learn one swordplay skill. The rest, if he wanted to purchase cultivation techniques, then he had to follow the sect's mission.
Unfortunately, this sect mission is only allowed for inner court disciples.
Outer court disciples must work by choosing jobs such as sweeper, cook, and so on to earn monthly contribution points. In the significant sects, copper, silver, and gold coins are worthless.
Therefore, despite feeling sleepy and lazy inwardly, Eadric Rong read a copy of the theory to cultivate.
"Strange. Cultivating in this record is the opposite of the way of cultivating I've heard from inner court disciples!"
As a working disciple working in the kitchen, Eadric Rong occasionally delivered food to the inner court disciples' dining hall. Despite the crowded atmosphere, he would often prick up his ears to listen to what was being said. His favorite thing was the debate on cultivation technique theory.
Curious, Eadric Rong sat in the lotus position as instructed in the copy. Then he breathed and flowed the energy as described there.
Just after he had burned one incense stick and cultivated according to the copy, Eadric Rong felt a flood of energy overflowing from the lower abdomen, precisely at the Pearl Core. His face changed a mixture of surprise and fear.
"I have a Pearl Core? How can that be?"
He continued his cultivation until black smoke billowed out of his head. There was a cracking sound, a sign that his bones were changing, and he opened his eyes in shock. Today, he was even more shocked.
"Bad Wolf Bone talent, turning into Tiger Bone? With just one cultivation?" Eadric Rong almost jumped up in excitement. Moreover, when he checked the bottom of his abdomen at the Pearl Core, there was an overflowing flow of energy in his internal parts.
"My skills are on par with the Jade Tiger Swordsman? I really can't believe it. Heaven was kind and heard my cries all this time."
What is the level of intelligence of a Jade Tiger Swordsman? In the future, I will discuss the cultivation levels in this novel.
Continued
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