Eternal Thief

Within two hours, Ace passed the level four area of the Lightning Mountain and successfully ventured into level five, where soul realm level lightning beasts roam.

But he slowed down a little and no longer avoided those lightning beasts since his cultivation was 'just' a breakthrough to the Soul Embryo Manifestation Realm's early stage.

He deliberately begins to run into lightning beasts, but they are all shot down by soul arrows of ice elements. The lighting beast appeared to be made with gray corporeal lightning, and to kill them, one had to attack the lightning cores within their head directly.

Although it sounds easy, the gray lightning was extremely resilient and could destroy weak elements easily. So, only those with the powerful element Qi can pierce through the gray lightning.

Still, to kill them, the attack has to be very strong, or it would only slightly damage their gray thunder Qi.

Like a sneaky archer, Ace didn't give them a chance to retaliate, and once they died, they dropped a gray crystal spherical core filled with gray lighting. Ace naturally didn't leave those lightning cores, and upon picking one, he found that those cores were filled with the life of lightning that the system had described.

As someone who understands the lightning's despair and thunder's destructive nature, the life of lightning Qi within the lightning core can help him understand the life nature of lightning as well.

Not only that, but Ace felt that the lightning in the core was somewhat beneficial to his innate lightning as a whole, but the level of these cores was too low, so he had to wait to verify this matter until he got a high-level lightning core.

Then, there was still the Life Lightning Quartz hidden somewhere in this mountain. Just thinking about acquiring this exotic natural treasure made him somewhat excited.

As he continued to slaughtered his way towards the sixth level, up in the sky, Conner's eyes were shinning with a hint of appreciation. He was now seeing hope in Leroy as his archery was the best in the younger generation he had ever witnessed.

He had already decided that if Leroy could survive in the sixth level for a day and kill ten lightning beasts by relying on his archery, he would accept him as his disciple.

Ace was unaware of Conner's thoughts even if he knew he simply didn't care, as this test was a walk in the park for him. His entire attention was on the lightning mountain.

He noticed another effect of this mountain as he entered the sixth level. The law of life lightning, was extremely dense here, and also, the lightning Qi were abundant. This place was a heaven for lightning cultivators.

At this moment, he suddenly sensed something locked on him, and he quickly dodged. Just as he takes the sidestep, a ten-meter gray bolt of lightning crashes down where he was standing a moment ago.

But the gray lightning bolt didn't vanish after missing its target, and like an agile whip, it instantly changed its direction towards Ace, wanting to pierce into his body.

With Ace's current prowess, he easily saw through this lightning bolt; it was actually an early-stage Qi soul manifestation realm lightning beast who had turned into a lightning bolt by using lightning intent.

Ace was also capable of that, but he showed a little since he knew that the law of lightning required to convert into an element body was quite high, and this beast was just an early-

stage Qi soul manifestation realm.

Still, he didn't have time to investigate, and he dodged again as he appeared to be struggling. He had to play his part as a new soul manifestation realm expert.

Drawing the green bow, five ice arrows appeared, and Ace predicted the lightning bolt trajectory. No matter how fast it was, it couldn't outmatch Ace's current reaction speed.

'Wiss…'

The five arrows released from the bow, and the lightning bolt was about to turn again when those arrows landed on it. Five icy blasts rang, and the power of frost was released, completely freezing the fifty-meter area around them.

Crackling sounds of lightning rang, and the lightning bolt suddenly shape-shifted into a ten-meter-tall tiger-like beast, and white frost was all over its body.

Before it could react, another volley of arrows appeared and didn't give the lightning beast a chance to dodge since all the paths of the retreat were completely blocked by arrows.

'Boom…'

Frosty explosions rang in the vicinity as if an ice storm had suddenly appeared; by the time the ice storm was gone, there was no more lightning beast, and only a palm-sized lightning core lay there crackling with gray lightning.

Ace picked up the core, and he could feel rich lightning within even more so than all the other cores he had collected till yet. Placing the core into the storage ring, he moved forward.

Hours passed, and Ace had already killed many soul-

manifestation lightning beasts. Even intermediate-stage realm beasts can't last more than a few seconds. After spending almost a day in the fifth level, Ace finally bumps into a peak-

level lightning beast of the soul manifestation realm.

After putting up a 'hard' fight, he managed to slay it while getting wounded a little himself.

Just as the beast fell, Conner appeared out of nowhere; Ace was calm inside but appeared surprised as Leroy.

Conner wore a content and gratified smile as he looked at Leroy in a haggard state, "Good! Heaven really didn't abandon this old soul! Little brat, although your result is somewhat disappointing, what can I say? Beggars can't be choosers. So, I reluctantly accept you as my first disciple.

"I'm the Imperial Teacher of Sky Heart Imperial School; my name is Divine Eye Conner, and people also call me Death Striker. Now, you can kneel down and acknowledge me as your master!" Conner appeared extremely haughty and majestic as he posed like some divine being in front of his disciple, and he couldn't help but feel quite pleased with his introduction and thought he had established an immortal image in his disciple's mind.

But in Ace's eyes, he appeared nothing but a narcissist, and he wondered if he was all right in the head!