4th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt slotted his spirit gem into the spell formation and activated it. The ambient energy grew denser, and Newt started with his first item on the agenda. He created one tendril of fire-aligned spiritual energy, letting it drift and sway in the phantom wind, like a jellyfish tentacle in the ocean, and at the same time he formed...
2024-11-24 22:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post4th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt stopped before a light-brown wooden door. A black tag with white letters hung at eye level, saying, ‘Joyguard’.
Did he change his name after taking up this position, or is it a coincidence?
Popular superstition stated that name was the omen of one’s future. Victor won against Newt’s father, New...
2024-11-23 08:24:58 +0000 UTC View Post4th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“A bright lad,” a booming voice said from a handful of steps away, disturbing Newt’s focus.
He was using three tendrils to feel the ground. The sensation was akin to looking a different way with each eye while someone held you by your legs and spun you around like a windmill.
Newt opened his eyes, certain his ...
2024-11-21 09:39:09 +0000 UTC View Post4th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt sent a pulse of spiritual energy into the earth and lost contact with it right away.
“Why’d you start with three feet right away?” Elder Alabaster yelled before reining in her voice. “Go slower, an inch at first, no more. You took the Formation Scribes’ Guild’s test. Use it as a guideline, send a thin thr...
2024-11-20 11:25:07 +0000 UTC View Post4th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“Don’t worry, you’re really close, much closer than someone your realm has any right to be, and I hate to interrupt you, but now it’s time for our daily lesson.” Elder Alabaster did not mention that Newt was closer to figuring out technique tracing than fourth realm cultivators. Even the majority of Newt’s seniors at the fifth...
2024-11-19 07:44:54 +0000 UTC View Post4th of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt had been developing his new technique for about an hour when he sensed an intrusion.
“Senior Apprentice Brother, it’s past eight in the morning.” The faintly familiar voice came from a world away, it was no heart demon, but the outer disciple desk clerk.
Newt stood up, dazed, as if someone had woken him i...
2024-11-17 09:29:27 +0000 UTC View Post3rd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt felt like gastonias had walked all over him as he entered room five-o-three. Even dead tired, he froze after taking a single step inside. The room was brightly lit, the air fresh, and the piles of dirty clothes were gone. Someone, probably Obsidian, had finished the cleanup Newt had started, and pinned a note to a bedroom ...
2024-11-16 10:39:20 +0000 UTC View Post3rd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Alabaster shrugged and said the only logical thing, “Sure.”
Newt could tell she expected Crystal would beat him into the ground. He looked at Crystal, and the young woman had a gentle face, but her eyes were stern and focused at the moment. Newt had bested one senior, and she had no intention of being the second.
<... 2024-11-15 18:19:09 +0000 UTC View Post3rd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“That’s an interesting defensive skill for your realm. Most can’t separate their protections from their body until the fourth realm. How far can you push it?”
Newt projected Granite Crust away from himself, and the dark cloud started dissolving at around a foot away.
“Wonderful.” Elder Alabaster suppress...
2024-11-14 08:39:58 +0000 UTC View Post3rd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt reached the northern training field an hour and a half before noon. His new uniform fit perfectly, but nobody noticed, since sect uniforms were supposed to fit perfectly anyway. Or at least that was the case with everyone using the training area.
Elders instructed lone disciples or groups which ranged from two to fiv...
2024-11-13 13:26:11 +0000 UTC View Post2nd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“You may check out up to three tomes containing no secrets, martial arts, or cultivation techniques. You may read them wherever, or even take them on missions. However, you have to sit down and copy them by hand, should you lose or damage them in any way.” The librarian’s voice turned harder than basalt when she mentioned...
2024-11-12 12:16:47 +0000 UTC View Post2nd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“Huh?” That wasn’t Magmin?
“What happened with the cores?” Still obsessed with money, Newt hardly considered the embarrassing question as it escaped lips. Luckily, Elder Woodhopper misunderstood his concern.
“Both the Cloud Monarch’s and the emperor’s are presumed to have exploded, wiping ou...
2024-11-10 04:53:07 +0000 UTC View Post2nd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt’s heart skipped a beat. He opened his mouth, but words failed him, and Elder Woodhopper’s smile grew wider.
“You are Newstar, a new inner disciple. It’s highly irregular for you to join the inner sect at this time.”
Newt nodded and clamped his mouth shut, feeling blood rush into his cheeks.
...
2024-11-09 03:32:23 +0000 UTC View Post2nd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“Good day, I am Elder Longfang. I’m also a member of the Formation Scribes’ Guild. You must be extraordinary to join outside the admittance period.”
Newt half-bowed to Elder Longfang, he was the person with the highest concentration of spiritual energy he had met so far. Newt guessed the lanky man was at the peak ...
2024-11-07 14:43:43 +0000 UTC View Post2nd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“Opportunities always come with a certain risk.” Newt said after collecting himself.
The words were hollow, when you heard the stories, the risk always happened to others and they survived, making it a gripping adventure, but a part of him knew that was the case because those who died lacked the ability to tell tales....
2024-11-06 04:59:29 +0000 UTC View Post2nd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt was at a loss, unsure what to do. Both women shut themselves in their bedrooms while some unfortunate guy’s stuff clogged his. Worse, he could not just throw the junk out, on account of the late guy’s girlfriend, who in turn did not want to see or touch those things.
What the hell?
Fortunately, the...
2024-11-05 07:04:48 +0000 UTC View Post2nd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Based on the flaky impression he had of Elder Alabaster, Newt expected a lot of things from her. Two hours every day, ‘be at the northern training field an hour before noon, and not a minute late or I beat you,’ was definitely not one of them.
The answer about finding the spell formation scribe and the beast tamer wer...
2024-11-03 08:21:44 +0000 UTC View Post2nd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“Name?” a bored clerk with gray hair and droopy eyes said, not bothering to grace Newt a look. His aura revealed him as a fourth realm cultivator, and considering his appearance, he must have been ancient.
“Newstar Blazing Salamander.”
The man glanced at Newt and nodded without saying a word before entering ...
2024-11-03 04:49:58 +0000 UTC View Post2nd of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt’s eyes immediately adjusted to the light as he left the sub. Just like Elder Alabaster had said, darkness and the small confined space meant little when cultivators meditated. And the peace of mind from cultivation meant little to Newt with that annoying voice whispering into his ear every now and then, calling him unfil...
2024-11-02 08:41:33 +0000 UTC View Post1st of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
For the first time in his life, Newt entered a port. The pier was huge, catering to a hundred docked ships, with plenty of empty space left over. Then, he saw the sea. The greenish-blue stretched into the horizon, stealing his breath away with every wave rolling towards him and striking the land.
“Never seen an ocean?...
2024-11-01 18:57:00 +0000 UTC View Post1st of Season of Fire, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“Thank you for everything, Senior.” Newt bowed deeply to Elder Frostgrave and the disciples of the Everfrost Palace. They had escorted him to the twenty-seventh imperial city called Star’s Fall.
The elder gave a solemn nod, minding the public, but Everlast, who was at the same realm, was freer to express her feeling...
2024-11-01 04:49:31 +0000 UTC View Post89nd of Season of Air, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Elder Frostgrave led the way for about a mile away from Thunder Ridge until the party reached a ramp leading to a stone viaduct. The elevated road was around eighty feet wide and stood twenty feet above ground.
Newt had seen nothing like it, and once they climbed it, the road seemed to span indefinitely towards the horizo...
2024-11-01 04:48:07 +0000 UTC View Post82nd of Season of Air, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“Newstar, we are beyond the point where you can just say you owe me another favor, and I will not reveal a secret like that to you, nor anyone else, without getting something of equal or greater value in return.”
Newt nodded. He had asked Dandelion for advice on how to keep using fire-aligned spiritual energy for long...
2024-10-31 13:44:01 +0000 UTC View Post80th of Season of Air, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
The return to the surface was a torture. Luckily, Everlast had some food stashed away in her spatial pouch, and Dandelion reshaped their bubble once so they could sleep. But even with all the advantages and a body which hardly required air, sustenance, and sleep, the simple light of the sun and the blueness of the sky left Newt...
2024-10-30 09:38:25 +0000 UTC View Post66th of Season of Air, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
The green light glared in the claustrophobic space barely larger than a coffin. It shone from below, painting everyone’s face a ghastly play of green and shadow. Newt’s heart drummed so hard, he was certain it was beating against Everlast’s breast.
An eternity seemed to have passed in the uncomfortable press of bodi...
2024-10-29 15:41:03 +0000 UTC View Post66th of Season of Air, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt could not believe what he was seeing. Everlast was also stunned, but she lacked the third eye, so she could not see the intricate flows of energy as Dandelion executed yet another third realm frostworm. The fourth one since they had arrived at the lower level.
The man flew over the unsuspecting frostworm, leaving a f...
2024-10-27 12:06:26 +0000 UTC View Post66th of Season of Air, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
“Here it comes,” Dandelion flew up from the pit in the furthest corner of the upper tunnels.
The shaft was a spiraling tube as wide at the cave was tall, and an infuriated, butt-burned frostworm was slithering up it, a dozen yards behind its smiling human tormentor.
Newt and Everlast were ready for it, and as ex...
2024-10-26 17:42:35 +0000 UTC View Post66th of Season of Air, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
Newt and Everlast carefully entered the frostworm cavern. Dandelion was not as stressed, nor did he tiptoe around, he simply walked normally, his steps muffled by cushions of air. Newt would not be surprised if the man started humming, but as they approached the scene of their previous battle, Dandelion went ahead, running on a...
2024-10-24 10:01:06 +0000 UTC View Post62nd of Season of Air, 57th year of the 32nd cycle
The frozen ground shook as the enraged frostworm’s bellows rattled Newt’s bones and made his molars buzz.
“It’s furious,” he said aloud what they already knew.
“At the fifth realm, spirit beasts are nearly as intelligent as humans, and most of the worms here are this one’s direct descendants.” Everla...
2024-10-23 11:45:43 +0000 UTC View Post